BY  HAMILTON 

HT  $*& 
MABIH 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
AT   LOS  ANGELES 


FRUITS  OF  THE  SPIRIT 


BOOKS  BY 

Hamilton  Mlnaij 

MY  STUDY  FIRE 

UNDER  THE  TREES  AND  ELSEWHERE 
SHORT  STUDIES  IN  LITERATURE 
ESSAYS  IN  LITERARY  INTERPRETATION 
MY  STUDY  FIRE,   SECOND  SERIES 
ESSAYS  ON  NATURE  AND  CULTURE 
ESSAYS  ON   BOOKS  AND  CULTURE 
ESSAYS  ON  WORK  AND  CULTURE 
THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 
NORSE  STORIES 
WORKS  AND  DAYS 
THE  GREAT  WORD 
CHRISTMAS  TO-DAY 
INTRODUCTIONS  TO  NOTABLE  POEMS 
FRUITS  OF  THE  SPIRIT 
IN  THE  FOREST  OF  ARDEN.    Illustrated 
MY  STUDY   FIRE.      Illustrated 
UNDER  THE  TREES.      Illustrated 
A  CHILD  OF   NATURE.      Illustrated 
NORSE  STORIES.     Illustrated 
NATURE  AND  CULTURE.    Illustrated 


FRUITS  OF  THE  SPIRIT 


BY 
HAMILTON  WRIGHT  MABIE 


WITH  AN  INTRODUCTION  BY 

LYMAN  ABBOTT 


NEW  YORK 
DODD,  MEAD  AND  COMPANY 

1917 


COPYRIGHT,  1903,  1904,  1905, 1906, 1907,  1908,  1909, 

1910,  1911,  1912,  1913,  1914,  1915,  1916 
BY  DODD.  MEAD  AND  COMPANY,  INC. 


'  ..•  •  •    .         .    •  ,       ,     •; 

-  •':  '  -      :    -.:.",     ,         '- ,-    ,  • 


S3 


PREFATORY  NOTE 

These  essays  have  appeared  in  the  edi 
torial  columns  of  The  Outlook  from  time 
^  to  time  for  several  years  past.  The 
.*  present  volume  is  the  result  of  a  desire, 
frequently  expressed,  that  the  timely  mes 
sages  so  fully  reflecting  the  author's  loy 
alty  to  his  country,  and  his  love  for  his 
fellow  men  in  their  highest  destinies, 
should  be  grouped  in  convenient  form 
in  order  to  perpetuate  the  potent  influ 
ence  they  are  known  to  have  exerted  upon 
the  conduct  and  thought  of  many  people. 
Their  wide  range  brings  them  into  touch 
with  eager  youth  seeking  inspiration; 
with  those  weary  in  well-doing,  needing 
encouragement;  with  those  bringing  the 
fruits  of  experience  to  enrich  the  activi 
ties  of  our  busy  age;  and  with  those  who 
face  the  sunset  in  serene  quiet.  Here 


Prefatory  Note 

all  may  find  breadth  of  vision,  renewed 
courage,  clearer  insight  into  the  com 
plexities  of  life,  and  profound  spiritual 
meanings. 

It  is  significant  that  the  latest  essays, 
written  in  1916,  during  a  period  of  great 
physical  depression,  are  concerned  with 
the  fundamentals  of  faith,  action  and 
achievement.  The  titles  seem  to  form 
themselves  into  a  triumphant  progres 
sion,  "  Character  First,"  "  Meeting  Life 
Squarely,"  "What  Can  I  Do?"  and 
"  The  Test  of  Courage."  They  would 
march  steadily  on  vibrant  with  the  belief 
in  the  ultimate  victory  of  good,  and  of 
God,  a  belief  that  inspired  every  word 
from  the  pen  now  laid  down  in  the  calm 
assurance  of  perfect  realization. 


VI 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

THE  TRUEST  COMMEMORATION  ...  i 

UNDER  THE  ASPECT  OF  ETERNITY  .     .  6 
THE  PRACTICE  OF  IMMORTALITY  .     .     .13 

WHO  ARE  THE  EXPERTS?     ....  22 

A  SAINT  OF  TO-DAY 27 

THE  MASK  OF  THE  YEARS  ....  34 

vj  LOVE  AND  WORK 42 

A  TEXT  FROM  LUTHER 49 

THE  ESCAPE  FROM  FEAR 54 

PRAYING  AND  WAITING 59 

THE  BUGLE  CALL  .     .     .     .     .     ...  62 

THE  UPPER  ROOM 68 

THE  PRICE  OF  IMMORTALITY     ...  73 

LIGHT  IN  THE  DARKNESS     ....  79 

STIRRING  THE  WILL   .     .     .     .     .     .  84 

LIFE,  GROWTH,  AND  HEAVEN     ...  88 

THE  ULTIMATE  COMPANIONSHIP     .      .  98 

/THE  PROPHECY  OF  LOVE 105 

GREAT  REFUSAL                  .           .  in 


Contents 

PAGE 

DISCREDITED  WITNESSES 119 

"  THERE  ARE  No  DEAD  "  126 

THE  LARGER  PLAN 132 

4  LOVE'S  SECOND  SIGHT 137 

THE  CHILD  AND  THE  WORLD  .  .  .  145 
THE  DEEPEST  THANKSGIVING  .  .  .153 
LODGINGS  AND  HOMES 157 

^LOVE  AND  LAW 164 

THE  BEST  SERVICE 172 

v  A  SECRET  OF  YOUTH 178 

MAKE  THE  TIME  You  WANT  .  .  .184 
v  A  TRAGEDY  OF  THE  GOOD  .  .  .  .  .188 

SIMPLICITY  OF  LIFE 193 

BY-PRODUCTS  IN  LIFE  .  ,  .  .  .  202 
THE  VALUE  OF  APPRECIATION  .  .  .  207 

JMMORTAL  LOVE     .     .....     .     .  212 

\ 

THE  WISDOM  OF  YOUTH     ....  220 

MAKING  OPPORTUNITIES 226 

FACE  TO  FACE 231 

THE  LAST  VIGIL 235 

LIGHT  ON  THE  WAY 241 

THE  LONELINESS  OF  LIFE    ....  245 

V/THE  CREDIBILITY  OF  LOVE    .     .      .      .251 

THE  EASTER  VISION 259 


Contents 

PAGE 

THE   PLUS  SIGN 268 

GOING   HOME 273 

THE  MYSTERY  OF  HEAVEN  ....  277 
THE  POSSIBILITY  OF  GREAT  GIVING  .  .  283 
THE  LONG  VIEW  OF  LIFE  ....  287 

AN  EASTER  THOUGHT 291 

THE  PATH  TO  GOD 298 

THE  PEACE  OF  CHRIST 304 

CHARACTER  FIRST 309 

MEETING  LIFE   SQUARELY     .      .      .     .314 

WHAT   CAN   I   Do? 318 

THE  TEST  OF  COURAGE 322 


HAMILTON  WRIGHT  MABIE 

No  one  disciple  of  Christ  can  give  all 
that  his  Master  gave.  But  each  one  of 
us  can  by  his  life  and  teaching  give  to 
his  own  circle  some  portion  of  the  mes 
sage  which  the  Master  gave  to  the  world. 
I  have  a  friend  whose  inexhaustible  en 
ergy  and  enthusiasm  of  service  always 
says,  though  quite  unconsciously,  to  every 
one  he  meets:  "  Son,  go  to  work  to-day 
in  my  vineyard."  I  had  another  friend, 
not  living  now,  whose  serene  temper  and 
reposeful  spirit  always  said:  "  Come  ye 
yourselves  apart  and  rest  awhile."  Her 
home  was  to  every  guest  that  entered  it 
like  the  arbor  which  Christian  found  in 
his  climb  up  the  Hill  Difficulty.  The 
message  which  Hamilton  Wright  Mabie 
brought  to  those  who  knew  him  with  any 
intimacy  was,  "  I  have  come  that  they 
xi 


Introduction 

might  have  life  and  that  they  might  have 
it  more  abundantly." 

Not  that  he  was  extraordinarily  ac 
tive  ;  not  that  he  was  in  the  least  character 
ized  by  that  bustling  energy  which  is  at 
once  the  virtue  and  the  vice  of  the  Ameri 
can.  I  do  not  recall  that  I  ever  saw  him 
in  a  hurry.  On  the  contrary,  if  I  were 
to  select  a  single  word  to  indicate,  not 
perhaps  his  most  distinguishing,  but  his 
most  apparent  characteristic,  I  should 
choose  the  word  "  reposeful."  In  one  of 
his  essays  he  writes,  "  The  man  who  is 
in  haste  is  always  out  of  relation  to 
things.  .  .  .  His  haste  implies  malad 
justment;  it  means  that  he  has  blundered, 
or  that  he  is  inadequate  to  the  task  he 
has  assumed."  Some  scientist  has  told 
us  that  there  is  more  power  in  an  acre 
of  forest  trees  than  in  any  ordinary  man 
ufacturing  town  with  all  its  bustle  and 
noise.  I  use  the  word  life  as  Bergson 
uses  it,  as  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  uses  it,  as 
Mr.  Mabie  himself  in  another  of  his  es 
says  has  used  it. 

xii 


Introduction 

"  There  is,  therefore,  in  every  bit  of  life,  no 
ble  or  ignoble,  beautiful  or  repulsive,  great  or 
small,  traces  of  a  thought,  evidences  of  an  order, 
lines  of  design.  Every  bit  of  life  is  a  bit  of 
revelation ;  it  brings  us  face  to  face  with  the 
great  mystery  and  the  great  secret.  In  every 
such  disclosure  we  are  not  only  looking  at  our 
selves,  but  we  are  catching  a  glimpse  of  God. 
All  revelation  of  life  has  the  spell,  therefore,  of 
a  discovery.  We  hold  our  breath  when  we 
hear  a  great  line  on  the  stage  for  the  first  time, 
or  come  upon  it  in  a  book,  because  we  are  dis 
covering  something;  we  are  awed  and  hushed 
because  we  are  looking  into  the  mystery.  There 
is  the  thrill,  the  wonder,  the  joy  of  seeing  an 
other  link  in  the  invisible  chain  which  binds  us 
to  the  past  and  unites  us  to  the  future." 

"  In  every  bit  of  life  " :  that  is  a  phrase 
very  characteristic  of  Mr.  Mabie's  writ 
ing  because  it  was  characteristic  of  his 
experience. 

He  lived  in  the  world  and  rejoiced  in 
all  that  it  had  to  give  him.  He  had 
neither  the  mediaeval  nor  the  Puritan 
conscience;  to  him  nothing  was  taboo. 
He  had  no  sympathy  with  the  doctrine 
of  Thomas  a  Kempis  that  one  must 


Introduction 

choose  between  this  world  and  the  next. 
He  believed  that  the  Father  had  made 
both  worlds  and  had  given  them  both  to 
his  children  to  enjoy.  He  believed  with 
Paul  that  "  all  things  are  yours;  whether 
Paul,  or  Apollos,  or  Cephas,  or  the 
world,  or  life,  or  death,  or  things  pres 
ent,  or  things  to  come;  all  are  yours": 
all  teachers,  all  material  things,  all  hu 
man  faculties  and  activities,  the  present 
world,  death  the  gateway  to  a  larger  life, 
and  the  world  to  come. 

This  fullness  of  life  defined  and  de 
termined  his  literary  judgments. 

Taine  has  said  that  as  behind  the  fossil 
there  was  an  animal  so  behind  the  folio 
there  was  a  life.  It  was  this  life  behind 
the  printed  page  which  interested  Mr. 
Mabie.  Language  was  to  him  but  the 
tool  by  which  thought  and  feeling  are 
expressed.  He  was  skillful  in  the  use 
of  this  tool,  and  he  had  a  mild  interest 
in  the  skill  with  which  other  word  art 
ists  used  their  tool.  But  his  vital  inter 
est  was  not  in  their  tool  but  in  their  mes- 
xjv 


Introduction 

sage.  Literature  appealed  to  him  be 
cause  it  was  an  interpretation  of  life  — 
not  merely  of  the  life  of  the  author,  but 
the  life  of  his  age  or,  in  the  case  of  a 
few  of  the  greatest  authors,  the  life  of 
all  the  ages.  He  himself  was  an  inter 
preter  rather  than  a  critic,  and  was  more 
concerned  to  enable  his  readers  to  see  life 
through  the  author's  eyes  than  to  give 
them  a  judgment  on  the  question  whether 
the  author  had  given  his  interpretation 
skillfully. 

Mr.  Mabie  was  more  than  a  literary 
critic,  and  he  was  more  than  a  literary 
interpreter.  He  was  interested  both  in 
nature  and  in  humanity,  because  he  saw 
in  both  an  expression  of  what  he  has 
called  "  The  Universal  Life."  Nature 
is  both  a  machine  and  a  book.  The  scien 
tific  mind  is  interested  in  Nature's  me 
chanical  aspects  and  its  material  values; 
for  example,  in  finding  and  realizing  the 
practical  value  of  electricity  as  a  means 
of  carrying  our  message  and  giving  light 
to  our  homes.  Mr.  Mabie  was  inter- 
xv 


Introduction 

ested  in  Nature  as  an  interpretation  of 
that  Infinite  and  Eternal  Energy  from 
which  all  things  proceed,  and  in  detect 
ing  the  unity  of  man  and  nature,  not  by 
interpreting  man  as  a  mechanical  toy 
but  by  interpreting  nature  as  a  body  in 
which  dwells  a  life-giving  spirit.  God, 
he  said,  "  is  the  force  which  permeates 
Nature  and  gives  her  forms  their  mean 
ing  and  their  beauty;  and  this  also  is  the 
force  which  lifts  humanity  out  of  the 
dust  and  gives  it  its  dignity  and  oppor 
tunity.  ...  So  every  bit  of  Nature, 
stone,  fish,  bird,  or  leaf,  becomes  pre 
cious;  they  are  all  parts  of  a  whole;  they 
are  links  in  a  chain.  Seen  in  the  light 
of  this  sublime  discovery  all  matter  is 
penetrated  with  thought.  In  like  man 
ner,  through  human  life  in  all  its  forms, 
under  all  its  conditions,  in  all  stages  of 
its  unfolding,  a  great  thought  or  order 
is  being  wrought  out." 

It  was  this  almost  oriental  faith  in  the 
unity  of  life  which  gave  Mr.  Mabie  his 
interest  in  social  problems.     Economics, 
xvi 


Introduction 

sociology,  politics,  were  interesting  to 
him  mainly  because  they  were  human 
problems,  because  in  them,  as  seen  in  ac 
tual  human  conditions,  they  showed  how 
a  great  thought  or  order  is  being  wrought 
out.  The  goal  which  he  saw  and  to 
which  he  believed  all  transitions,  all  strug 
gles,  all  revolutions,  are  gradually  lead 
ing  the  human  race  is  a  divinely  predes 
tined  human  brotherhood.  It  was  this 
too  that  made  him  a  universal  friend. 
He  desired  to  help  not  merely  the  lame, 
the  halt,  and  the  blind  out  of  their  handi 
cap;  he  desired  to  do  what  he  could  to 
promote  the  gradual  creation  of  an  or 
derly  world  out  of  chaos.  He  was  a 
brother  in  this  universal  but  imperfectly 
developed  brotherhood  because  "  good  or 
evil,  high  or  low,  illustrious  or  obscure, 
all  human  lives  disclose  something  above 
and  beyond  them." 

This  same  spirit  of  abundant  life  char 
acterized  his   religious   experience.     He 
regarded  all  theologies,  all  liturgies,  all 
ecclesiastical    organizations,     as     instru- 
xvii 


Introduction 

ments  either  to  express  or  to  promote  the 
spiritual  life.  He  was  always  a  loyal 
member  of  the  Episcopal  communion  and 
in  his  later  life  active  and  influential  in 
the  organization.  But  he  never  identi 
fied  himself  with  any  of  the  parties  in 
that  communion.  I  have  often  heard 
him  say  that  the  Church  of  Christ  ought 
to  be  large  enough  to  embrace  men  of  all 
opinions  and  all  temperaments.  He  be 
lieved  that  the  bond  of  union  and  the  test 
of  fellowship  should  be,  not  agreement 
upon  a  dogma,  but  loyalty  to  a  Person, 
not  intellectual  nor  emotional,  but  vital. 

For  nearly  forty  years  Hamilton  W. 
Mabie  and  I  worked  together  as  brothers 
in  an  educational  enterprise.  We  came 
of  different  ancestry  and  possessed  dif 
ferent  temperaments.  I  was  a  child  of 
Puritan  ancestry,  he  a  son  of  the  Church; 
I  was  temperamentally  philosophical,  he 
was  temperamentally  poetical.  But  a 
mystical  faith  in  the  unseen  united  us  in  a 
friendship  which  strengthened  and  deep 
ened  with  the  passing  years;  We  not 
xviii 


Introduction 

only  shared  in  each  other's  work,  we  were 
companions  in  each  other's  sorrows. 
Each  profoundly  affected  the  other's  life. 
This  etching  is  of  my  friend  as  I  under 
stood  him.  Doubtless  it  will  seem  er 
roneous  to  some,  inadequate  to  others. 
But  I  hope  it  may  serve  to  help  many 
readers  to  get  from  his  pen  something  of 
the  illumination  and  inspiration  which  I 
derived  from  him  through  a  very  sacred 
personal  friendship. 

LYMAN  ABBOTT. 


XIX 


FRUITS  OF  THE  SPIRIT 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

The  Truest  Commemoration 

MEMORIALS  of  every  kind  in  every 
age  and  country  bear  witness  to 
the  depth  and  tenderness  of  human  love 
and  to  its  guardianship  of  the  memory  of 
those  who  have  passed  beyond  its  care 
into  the  keeping  of  the  Eternal  Love. 
Passionate  grief,  despair,  dumb  submis 
sion,  victorious  faith,  have  found  expres 
sion  in  every  form  that  art  could  devise 
—  beautiful,  stately,  tender.  Great  lead 
ers,  daring  soldiers,  saints,  prophets, 
poets,  statesmen,  women  whose  loveli 
ness  made  the  air  about  them  sweet  and 
warm,  young  girls  in  whose  charm  all 
that  was  sweetest  in  nature  and  most  ap 
pealing  in  prediction  of  the  richer  growth 
to  come,  little  children  holding  the  pil 
grim's  staff  like  a  toy  in  their  hands  — 
i 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

for  each  and  all  there  are  memorials 
which  record  the  wealth  of  achievement 
or  promise  that  went  with  them  out  of 
the  world. 

To  be  surrounded  by  the  visible  me 
morials  of  those  who  have  gone  before 
is  to  have  continually  present  the  sense 
of  the  unbroken  life  of  the  race,  of  the 
line  of  descent  from  parent  to  child  in 
continuous  generations,  of  the  unity  of 
those  who  have  passed  through  the  edu 
cation  of  earth  and  those  who  are  learn 
ing  its  lessons  as  best  they  can,  of  the 
fellowship  of  that  invisible  host  of  wit 
nesses  which  gives  human  struggle  its  im 
mense  spiritual  significance.  As  children 
ought  everywhere  to  read  the  story,  not 
of  their  country's  wealth  and  power,  but 
of  its  heroes,  its  courage,  its  achievements 
in  the  emancipation  of  the  human  spirit, 
so  ought  every  child  to  come  into  con 
sciousness  of  the  ties  that  bind  the  latest 
to  the  earliest  men  and  women  in  vital 
and  unescapable  relationship  in  the  fa 
therhood  of  God  and  the  brotherhood  of 


The  Truest  Commemoration 

Christ,  by  memorials  on  every  side  of 
those  who  have  made  life  great,  rich, 
pure,  tender,  and  fruitful.  If  they  whom 
we  call  the  dead  have  escaped  out  of 
sleep  and  are  now  alive  in  a  fullness  of 
life  which  "  it  hath  not  entered  into  the 
mind  of  man  to  conceive,"  then,  surely, 
they  who  remain  to  endure  and  struggle 
toward  the  light  ought  to  be  lifted  up  by 
the  companionship  of  the  vast  company 
who  have  achieved  freedom  and  harmony 
of  deed  with  thought  and  of  reality  with 
vision. 

There  is  one  form  of  memorial,  how 
ever,  that  all  love  and  sorrow  must 
take  if  they  are  to  touch  the  heart  of 
this  living  relationship  which  death  only 
brings  into  clearer  light,  and  which  bears 
the  same  relation  to  all  forms  of  honor 
to  those  who  have  gone  before  that  rites, 
ceremonies,  splendor  of  structure,  costli 
ness  of  gifts,  bear  to  the  complete  service 
of  God:  it  is  the  honor  that  we  express 
in  our  own  lives.  The  heroic  are  most 
nobly  commemorated  by  heroism  in  deed 
3 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

rather  than  in  stone;  the  pure  are  best 
kept  in  mind  by  a  new  purity  in  the 
hearts  that  remember;  greatness  of  serv 
ice  and  nobility  of  nature  by  the  quick 
ening  of  all  that  is  unselfish  and  self-sac 
rificing  in  those  who  guard  the  memory 
of  a  life  once  hidden  by  its  very  loveliness 
and  now  hidden  in  the  light  of  God. 
It  is  the  unbroken  continuity  of  influence 
and  power  that  bears  witness  to  the 
vital  family  relationship  of  the  present 
with  the  farthest  past;  it  is  the  bequest 
not  of  rank  or  arms  or  property  that 
affirms  the  honorable  descent  of  those 
who  remain  from  those  who  have  gone ; 
it  is  rather  the  quickened  sense  of  honor, 
of  loyalty,  of  the  service  due  in  all  love 
from  the  fortunate  to  the  unfortunate. 
This  is  the  spiritual  remembrance  that 
must  be  sweeter  to  those  whom  it  com 
memorates  than  statues  or  tablets  or 
blazened  windows;  here,  too,  sorrow 
finds  the  path  to  peace  through  action. 
Not  often  has  this  highest  form  of  re 
membrance,  this  refuge  for  the  sorrow- 
4 


The  Truest  Commemoration 

ful,  been  more  simply  and  strongly 
brought  to  mind  than  in  this  letter  from 
Charles  Godfrey  Leland  to  a  friend: 

...  It  is  truly  with  grief  I  learn  that  a  great 
loss  has  befallen  you.  As  regards  terrible  be 
reavements  there  is  but  one  thing  to  do  wisely 
—  to  draw  nearer  to  those  who  remain  or  what 
ever  is  near  and  dear  to  us  in  life,  and  love 
them  the  more,  and  become  gentler  and  better 
ourselves,  making  more  of  what  is  left.  There 
are  people  who  wail  and  grieve  incessantly  and 
neglect  the  living  to  extravagance.  It  seems 
always  as  if  they  attracted  further  losses  and 
deeper  miseries.  Weak  and  simple  minds  grieve 
most  —  melancholy  becomes  a  kind  of  painful 
indulgence,  and  finally  a  deadly  habit.  Work 
is  the  great  remedy.  I  think  a  great  deal  of  the 
old  Northern  belief  that  if  we  lament  too  much 
the  dead,  they  cannot  rest  in  their  graves  and 
are  tormented  by  our  tears.  It  is  a  pity  that 
the  number  of  our  years  is  not  written  on  our 
foreheads  when  we  are  born.  Keep  up  your 
heart,  work  hard,  live  in  hope  .  .  .  study  — 
there  is  a  great  deal  in  you.  As  in  China,  we 
ennoble  the  dead  by  ennobling  ourselves. 


Under  the  Aspect  of  Eternity 

MEN  suffer  immense  loss  of  reserve 
power  for  dealing  with  the  work 
and  problems  of  the  time,  and  of  deep- 
flowing  consolation  in  their  sorrows  and 
anxieties,  by  reason  of  their  intense 
absorption  in  the  interests  of  the  hour 
and  their  preoccupation  with  affairs. 
Never  before  has  this  present  life  laid 
hold  upon  conscience,  thought  and  will 
with  such  searching  and  compelling 
forces.  Those  who  are  eager  to  deal 
with  life  on  the  highest  plane  find  it  diffi 
cult  to  penetrate  the  multitude  of  details 
that  press  upon  attention  with  the  sense 
of  a  greater  order  in  which  all  things 
find  their  place  and  are  moved  to  some 
great  end.  Work  of  such  magnitude 
awaits  capable  men,  and  taxes  thought 
and  strength  to  such  a  degree  that  many 
men  put  such  heroic  labor  into  the  day 
that  night  overtakes  them  unawares,  and 
they  awake  with  surprise  to  find  that  their 
6 


Under  the  Aspect  of  Eternity 

work  is  only  a  part  of  a  gigantic  scheme 
of  construction.  Their  tasks  have  ab 
sorbed  them  so  completely  that  they  have 
never  realized  their  relations  to  a  spirit 
ual  order.  This  is  a  far  more  fruitful  way 
of  life  than  that  of  the  man  who  dreams 
of  purely  spiritual  activities  but  never  sets 
his  hand  to  any  real  task  or  binds  on  his 
shoulders  any  of  the  burdens  which  hu 
manity  must  carry  in  its  mysterious  jour 
ney  toward  the  unseen  country. 

To  preach  idleness,  withdrawal  from 
the  world,  escape  from  the  manifold  tasks 
of  modern  society,  to  men  who  have  be 
come  heroic  workers  by  virtue  of  the 
inward  force  which  makes  them  men  and 
the  outward  opportunities  with  which 
God  has  encircled  them  to  draw  out 
their  power  and  evoke  character  on  a 
vast  scale,  is  as  idle  as  to  command  them 
to  go  back  to  the  Ptolemaic  astronomy 
or  the  geography  that  was  studied  before 
Columbus  enlarged  the  world  by  the  dis 
covery  of  another  continent.  There  is 
no  solution  of  the  problem  of  the  soul 
7 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

by  taking  it  out  of  its  normal  relations  in 
human  society;  there  can  be  no  return 
to  the  patriarchal  days  when  men  lived  in 
tents  and  watched  their  flocks  and  spent 
their  days  in  a  vast  leisure  of  mind;  nor 
to  those  middle  years  in  the  history  of 
the  human  spirit  when  they  lived  in 
little  walled  towns  and  served  their  kings 
and  obeyed  their  spiritual  rulers  with 
unthinking  obedience.  There  must  be 
room  for  the  spirit  and  time  for  its  ripen 
ing,  but  these  conditions  must  be  secured 
not  by  going  back  but  by  going  forward. 
It  would  be  well  if  the  preoccupied 
men  and  women  of  to-day  would  take 
time  to  read  Dante's  "  Divine  Comedy;  " 
to  climb  from  time  to  time  that  great  peak 
which  o'ertops  the  poetry  of  the  world. 
Probably  no  form  of  expression  could  be 
further  from  the  habitual  thought  and 
speech  of  the  day  than  this  report  of  the 
journey  of  the  soul  through  the  three 
worlds;  but  no  modern  writing  is  so  clear 
and  authoritative  in  its  setting  of  the  life 
that  now  is  in  definite  and  unescapable  re- 


Under  the  Aspect  of  Eternity 

lation  to  the  life  which  is  to  come.  In 
this  sublime  epic  of  the  soul  of  man  in  all 
conditions  there  is  no  idle  dreaming,  no 
vague  and  easy  speculation  concerning  the 
growth  of  the  spirit  and  its  union  with 
God;  on  the  contrary,  the  poem  stands 
foursquare  to  all  the  winds  of  shifting 
opinion,  based  on  an  eternal  order,  per 
vaded  throughout  by  a  vivid  realism.  The 
poet  escaped,  by  virtue  of  his  genius,  from 
the  tyranny  of  types  and  personifications 
which  gave  unreality  to  much  mediaeval 
art,  and  built  a  world  as  solid  as  the 
Florence  which  drove  him  into  exile.  No 
other  poet  of  the  heavenly  vision  has 
dared  to  give  his  interpretation  of  the  life 
of  man  such  massive  reality  and  none  has 
touched  it  with  such  compelling  power. 

For  this  reason,  among  others,  Dante 
is  a  teacher  at  whose  feet  the  men  and 
women  of  this  busy  age  ought  to  sit;  he 
is  no  master  of  beautiful  dreams,  no 
magician  dexterously  spinning  a  web  of 
iridescent  words  over  the  abysses;  he 
sees  real  things  with  clear  and  fearless 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

glance,  and  he  teaches  us  not  to  evade, 
to  escape,  to  renounce,  to  comfort  and 
mislead  ourselves  with  idle  visions,  but 
to  look  at  the  great  facts  of  life,  to  ac 
cept  its  duties,  do  its  work,  live  in  its 
relations,  in  the  light  of  the  world  to 
come.  He  has,  as  Dean  Church  has 
said,  "  too  strong  a  sense  of  the  reality 
of  this  familiar  life  to  reduce  it  merely 
to  a  shadow  and  type  of  the  unseen. 
What  he  struggles  to  express  in  countless 
ways,  with  all  the  resources  of  his  strange 
and  gigantic  power,  is,  that  this  world  and 
the  next  are  both  equally  real,  and  both 
one."  In  a  word,  Dante  saw  the  world 
"  under  the  aspect  of  eternity." 

In  that  attitude  is  found  our  escape 
from  the  tyranny  of  the  tremendous  tasks 
laid  on  the  shoulders  of  modern  men  by 
the  growth  of  power  within  and  without. 
It  is  impossible  to  go  back  to  the  more 
leisurely  periods  when  interests  were  few 
and  simple;  if  it  were  possible  we 
should  not  win  the  victory  and  find  the 
peace  which  our  souls  crave.  These 
xo 


Under  the  Aspect  of  Eternity 

things  are  not  gifts  from  God  to  be  had 
for  the  asking;  they  are  achievements 
which  we  must  make  by  conquest  of 
ourselves  and  our  conditions.  The  prob 
lem  of  life  is  never  one  of  external 
conditions;  it  is  always  one  of  inward 
energy,  purity,  nobility.  The  way  out 
for  those  who  would  live  the  life  of  the 
spirit  in  this  age  of  tumultuous  activity  is 
to  realize  hour  by  hour  that  the  life  that 
now  is  and  the  life  that  is  to  come,  how 
ever  different  in  condition  and  occupation, 
are  parts  of  one  indivisible  and  unbroken 
life;  it  is  to  see  the  world  steadily  and 
clearly  "  under  the  aspect  of  eternity." 

It  does  not  matter  how  vast  the  works 
of  the  time  are,  if  in  accepting  their 
reality  we  understand  how  subordinate 
they  are  in  the  spiritual  order;  it  does 
not  matter  how  heavy  the  burdens  of 
society  are  if  we  carry  them  with  the 
conviction  that  they  are  part  of  that 
spiritual  discipline  which  is  the  rational 
and  inspiring  explanation  of  life.  The 
world  that  surrounds  us  is  not  a  mirage; 
ii 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

is  a  deep-going  and  unescapable  reality, 
and  woe  to  the  man  or  woman  who  tries 
to  ignore  it,  to  treat  it  as  a  figment  of 
the  imagination,  to  escape  from  it.  But 
that  which  is  visible  is  only  a  little  sec 
tion  of  the  whole  as  the  earth  which 
seems  so  vast  to  us  is  only  a  little  star 
in  a  universe  of  suns.  When  a  man 
sees  through  the.  material  which  piles 
itself  about  him  to  the  spiritual  which  is 
its  master;  when  he  rules  all  the  works 
of  his  hands  by  virtue  of  the  sovereignty 
of  his  soul;  puts  his  hand  to  his  task 
and  gives  his  whole  strength  to  it  because 
it  is  a  reality  in  vital  relation  with  a 
greater  reality;  gains  wealth  with  full 
knowledge  that  money  can  buy  many 
things  for  his  body,  but  nothing  for  his 
spirit;  organizes  great  enterprises,  with 
clear  understanding  that  he  is  the  serv 
ant  of  an  irresistible  movement  in  human 
affairs,  he  is  safe  from  the  blindness, 
corruption,  deadness  of  mere  material 
activity  and  achievement;  he  has  learned 
to  see  life  "  under  the  aspect  of  eternity/' 

12 


The  Practice  of  Immortality 

THE  gains  which  men  and  women 
have  made  in  self-control,  under 
standing  of  life,  beauty  and  nobility  of 
character,  have  been  secured  by  those  who 
have  lived  in  advance  of  the  standards  of 
their  time.  In  most  cases  the  separation 
has  not  been  so  great  as  to  involve  the 
tragedy  of  persecution,  but  sometimes  it 
has  led  straight  to  the  hemlock,  the  block, 
or  the  cross.  In  every  generation  and 
in  every  country  there  has  been  a  group 
of  those  upon  whom  the  light  of  the 
morning  rested  and  who  have  pressed  on 
into  the  new  day.  They  were  not  re 
formers  in  the  sense  of  aggressively  at 
tacking  the  things  in  which  they  did  not 
believe;  they  were  always  so  intent  on 
bringing  into  their  lives  the  power  of 
higher  ideals  that  they  served  their  fel 
lows  best,  not  by  what  they  destroyed, 
but  by  what  they  revealed  and  made 
13 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

credible.  To  many  who  surrounded 
them  those  eager  seekers  for  the.  better 
life  seemed  to  be  pursuing  dreams  as 
evanescent  as  the  rainbow  and  seeking 
ends  as  unreal  as  the  pot  of  gold  that  lies 
concealed  where  the  arch  of  radiant  mist 
rests  on  the  ground.  But  the  mountains 
stand  distinct  and  immovable,  though  the 
near-sighted  do  not  see  them;  to  the  far- 
sighted  they  are  as  real  and  solid  as  the 
earth  beneath  their  feet. 

Men  have  followed  dreams  and  fallen 
in  a  vain  though  not  always  barren 
pursuit  of  them;  but  those  who  see  fur 
ther  than  their  fellows  and  live  in  the 
larger  relations  which  their  vision  reveals 
to  them  are  of  all  men  most  rational. 
One  need  not  wait  for  the  banishment 
of  greed  from  society  to  practice  unself 
ishness;  one  need  not  wait  for  a  clean 
and  civilized  legal  treatment  of  marriage 
relations  to  keep  the  home  pure  and 
sacred;  one  need  not  wait  until  public 
life  is  cleansed  from  dishonesty  to  serve 
his  fellows  with  a  heart  that  knows  no 


The  Practice  of  Immortality 

treachery  to  the  great  interests  of  the 
nation  and  with  hands  that  have  never 
taken  bribes;  one  need  not  wait  until 
war  is  abolished  to  live  the  life  of  peace 
that  rests  on  the  love  of  God  expressed 
in  the  love  of  man.  Society  is  made  up 
of  those  who  live  by  the  standards  of  the 
day  and  of  those  who  live  by  the  stand 
ards  of  to-morrow;  and  the  real  dreamers 
are  those  who  accept  things  as  they  are; 
the  followers  after  the  higher  realities 
are  those  who  have  wakened  out  of  sleep 
and  have  looked  upon  life  as  it  is.  To 
these  clear-sighted  men  and  women  the 
standards  they  recognize  are  made  more 
definite  and  commanding  by  living  as  if 
these  standards  were  already  univers 
ally  accepted;  and  they  gradually  con 
form  their  aims  and  deeds  to  these  higher 
requirements,  and  are  more  alive  than 
their  fellows  because  they  are  in  touch 
with  a  greater  number  of  real  things. 

The    discussion   of   the    credibility   of 
immortality    has    its    uses    and    becomes 
imperative   from  time  to  time;  but  the 
15 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

final  demonstration  of  this  great  fact  is 
never  made  as  the  result  of  a  process  of 
reasoning;  it  is  ultimately  and  convinc 
ingly  revealed  in  the  experience.  Those 
who  do  not  know  immortality  as  a  fact 
of  experience  often  have  opinions  about 
it,  but  can  never  have  knowledge  of  it; 
and  when  that  knowledge  has  been 
attained,  all  the  argument  in  the  world 
will  disturb  the  faith  which  springs  out 
of  it  as  little  as  the  skepticism  of  the 
short-sighted  will  disturb  those  who  see 
the  mountains  whenever  they  lift  their 
eyes.  The  fact  that  many  good  and  true 
men  and  women  doubt  the  immortality 
of  the  soul  has  no  more  weight  with  those 
who  have  learned  it  by  experience  than 
has  the  inability  of  the  good  and  true  to 
appreciate  music  power  to  disturb  the 
faith  or  destroy  the  joy  of  those  who 
know  that  Beethoven  has  as  authentic  a 
voice  as  Shakespeare,  and  that  the  "  Sym 
phony  Pathetique,"  has  as  real  and  sub 
stantial  a  cry  from  the  soul  of  Russia 
as  was  Dostoyevski's  "  Poor  Folk." 
16 


The  Practice  of  Immortality 

Immortality  is  not  a  future  state;  it 
is  a  present  condition.  It  is  not  a  gift  to 
be  conferred  hereafter;  it  is  power  in 
herent  in  the  human  soul.  It  is  not  a 
fact  to  be  proved  by  logical  demonstra 
tion  any  more  than  the  reality  of  the  life 
of  which  we  are  now  conscious;  it  is  not 
a  truth  to  be  revealed  in  some  remote 
heaven;  it  is  a  fact  to  be  accepted  as 
life  is  accepted,  and  to  be  lived  as  life 
is  lived  in  thought,  emotion,  and  action. 
If  we  would  know  immortality,  we  must 
write  it  on  our  hearts  that  we  are  now 
immortal;  if  we  would  get  the  peace 
and  joy  of  it,  we  must  rest  securely  in  it; 
if  we  would  have  it  become  steadily  more 
real,  commanding,  and  inspiring,  we 
must  live  as  immortals. 

For  immortality  is  no  more  a  dream 
than  are  those  higher  realities  which 
have  led  aspiring  souls  in  every  genera 
tion  step  by  step  upward.  We  have 
gone  only  a  little  way  in  the  full  unfold 
ing  of  the  human  spirit,  but  we  have 
gone  so  far  that  our  commonplace  reali- 
17 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

ties  of  the  relations  of  man  with  man 
would  have  seemed  to  our  remote  ances 
tors  like  the  idle  dreams  of  children,  to 
be  laughed  to  scorn  by  all  men  who 
wished  to  deal  with  life  as  it  is.  They 
have  not  discovered  that  life  is  a  differ 
ent  matter  to  each  succeeding  genera 
tion;  that,  in  the  sense  of  a  reality  which 
is  the  same  everywhere  and  to  all,  there 
is  no  such  thing  as  "  life  as  it  is."  Life 
was  one  thing  to  Socrates  and  another 
to  Cleon;  one  thing  to  Judas  and  an 
other  to  the  Christ;  one  thing  to  Lincoln 
and  another  to  Burr.  Does  any  one 
question  which  kind  of  life  was  the  larg 
est  and  most  real? 

It  is  idle  to  tell  the  man  who  prac 
tices  a  virtue  above  the  standard  of  his 
time  that  he  is  a  dreamer;  he  knows 
what  has  actually  happened  in  his  own 
experience;  he  knows  that  he  is  living 
in  a  larger  world  than  the  doubters  and 
skeptics;  and  he  knows  that  the  virtue 
he  strives  to  attain  is  real  because  he 
practices  it. 

18 


The  Practice  of  Immortality 

In  like  manner,  the  men  and  women 
who  have  dreamed  what  Dr.  Gladden 
has  finely  called  "  the  practice  of  immor 
tality  "  are  not  dreaming  of  a  possible 
revelation  to  be  made  hereafter;  they  are 
living  now  in  a  larger  view  of  the  world, 
and  acting  day  by  day  in  the  light  of 
present  knowledge.  They  do  not  search 
the  books  for  arguments  in  support  of 
the  truth  of  immortality,  nor  are  they 
disturbed  by  the  fluctuation  of  opinion 
regarding  it;  they  are  absorbed  in  the 
practice  of  it.  They  think  of  themselves 
always  as  immortal;  they  live  day  by 
day  in  the  immediate  presence  of  that 
spiritual  order  in  this  present  stage  of 
life  which,  though  invisible,  constantly 
and  with  increasing  clearness  bears  wit 
ness  to  itself  in  current  history;  they 
strive  in  all  their  intercourse  with  others 
to  bear  themselves  as  immortals  and  to 
reverence  their  fellows  as  sharers  in  the 
great  gift  of  life;  they  make  immortality 
credible  by  purity,  helpfulness,  and  fer 
tility;  by  courage,  calmness,  and  the 
19 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

sweetness  that  streams  from  a  great 
vision  become  the  feeder  of  character; 
they  think  always  of  those  who  hav£ 
passed  through  the  Gate  of  Death  as 
possessed  of  a  more  vital  and  tran 
scendent  life;  "  it  is  the  dead  only 
who  really  live,  it  is  we  who  are  dying;  " 
if  it  comforts  and  freshens  their  sense  of 
the  reality  of  the  one  life  elsewhere,  they 
pray  for  those  who  have  gone  on  as 
freely  and  confidently  as  for  those  who 
remain;  they  think  of  the  whole  universe, 
visible  and  invisible,  as  the  home  in 
which  God  lives;  of  life  as  one  and  in 
divisible;  of  immortality  as  a  present 
possession,  and  of  its  practice  as  its  only 
real  evidence  and  demonstration;  they 
find  no  incredible  mystery  in  the  empty 
tomb  from  which  the  Christ  walked  un 
harmed,  because  in  thought,  word,  and 
deed  he  lived  as  an  immortal  from  the 
hour  of  his  birth  to  the  hour  of  his  as 
cension. 

And    in    all    this    they    are    no    more 
dreamers  than  is  the  man  in  the  little 


The  Practice  of  Immortality 

remote  country  village  who  by  education 
and  travel  has  so  widened  his  relations 
that  he  lives  in  the  world  instead  of  the 
place  where  he  does  his  work,  finds  his 
shelter,  and  takes  his  daily  rest;  than  the 
man  who,  in  this  present  stage  of  war, 
greed,  and  selfishness,  lives  in  the  reality 
of  a  nobler  age  as  surely  coming  out  of 
the  travail  of  to-day  as  this  age  of  spirit 
ual  and  moral  striving  has  come  out  of 
the  age  of  barbarism,  lust,  and  fear. 


Who  are  the  Experts? 

THE  Christ  story,  which  the  world 
loves  even  in  its  most  skeptical 
moments,  curiously  relates  itself  to  the 
highest  moods  of  the  spirit,  and  its  sym 
bolism  has  an  interior  and  convincing  re 
lation  with  the  aspirations  and  hopes  of 
men.  One  determining  element  in  the 
discovery  of  spiritual  and  moral  truth  is 
strangely  overlooked  in  our  processes  of 
investigation,  and  that  is  purity  of  life 
and  harmony  with  its  invisible  order.  In 
every  other  field  of  knowledge  we  de 
mand  the  most  sensitive  and  accurate 
instruments  of  observation.  The  appli 
ances  which  equip  our  laboratories  are 
made  with  the  nicest  art  and  kept  with 
the  most  painstaking  care.  Mechanism 
of  exquisite  delicacy  of  construction 
registers  the  faintest  perturbation  of 
earth  or  air;  microscopes  of  the  highest 
power  reinforce  the  eye;  telescopes, 
22 


Who  Are  the  Experts? 

planted  where  vibration  is  at  the  mini 
mum  and  clarity  of  air  at  the  maximum, 
record  the  movements  of  stars  on  the 
far  boundaries  of  space  and  analyze  the 
fires  that  burn  in  the  suns;  the  authority 
of  the  observer  depends  on  the  perfec 
tion  of  his  vision;  one  of  the  foremost 
astronomers  of  the  time  owes  his  emi 
nence  to  his  extraordinary  power  of  sight; 
physicians  build  great  reputations  on  the 
intelligence  which  resides  in  their  finger 
tips  and  the  acuteness  of  their  faculty 
of  hearing.  In  all  other  fields  of  knowl 
edge  we  insist  on  special  qualifications 
and  peculiar  gifts,  and  insist  that  the 
expert  shall  keep  the  organs  he  uses  in 
the  most  perfect  condition.  If  he  vio 
lates  the  laws  of  health  and  his  hand 
loses  its  steadiness,  his  eye  its  clear 
sighted  and  far-sighted  vision,  his  ear  its 
acuteness,  we  set  him  aside  as  we  set 
aside  the  instrument  or  mechanism  that 
has  lost  its  perfect  adjustment.  When  an 
observer  falls  into  this  condition,  his  au 
thority  departs,  and  he  no  longer  counts 

33 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

among  the  instruments  of  research. 
When  it  comes  to  the  world  of  spiritual 
knowledge,  however,  where  the  most 
delicate  and  sensitive  instruments  of 
observation  are  required,  we  forget  the 
tests  which  science  has  taught  us  and 
we  in  turn  apply  to  science,  and  listen 
to  the  reports  of  any  man  or  woman  who 
lays  claim  to  that  gift  of  prophecy  which 
is  the  knowledge  of  invisible  things, 
without  looking  at  his  or  her  credentials. 
The  man  in  the  street  does  not  assume 
to  know  astronomy,  and  if  he  did  we 
should  give  him  small  shrift  of  attention ; 
but  when  the  same  man  begins  to  speak 
of  things  which  involve  rare  qualities  of 
mind  and  character,  we  listen  as  to  an 
oracle.  Spiritual  things  are  spiritually 
discerned;  men  and  women  of  spiritual 
genius  and  of  moral  achievements  alone 
speak  with  authority  on  these  great 
matters.  The  faculty  of  spiritual  obser 
vation  rests  primarily  on  harmony  with 
those  laws  of  health  which  are  the 
expression  of  right  relations  to  the  uni- 


Who  Are  the  Experts? 

verse.  The  man  who  violates  these  laws, 
whatever  his  gifts  of  mind  may  be,  is  as 
little  entitled  to  credence  when  he  speaks 
of  spiritual  things  as  is  the  astronomer 
when  his  sight  has  failed  or  the  physician 
when  his  hearing  has  become  dull.  The 
only  expert  in  the  knowledge  of  the 
spiritual  order  is  the  man  who  has  kept 
his  faculty  of  observation  in  the  highest 
condition;  but  we  take  our  views  of  life 
from  moral  invalids,  from  the  morally 
insane,  from  those  whose  hands  are 
incapable  of  steadiness,  whose  sight  is  a 
half  blindness  and  whose  hearing  is  a 
partial  deafness. 

There  are  scores  of  books  in  our 
libraries  which  assume  to  reveal  the 
invisible  order  of  life  to  us,  to  interpret 
that  life,  and  to  put  the  key  to  the  mys 
tery  in  our  hands,  which  are  mere  tran 
scriptions  of  temperament,  reflections  of 
moods,  revelations  of  abnormal  individ 
ual  experience;  and  we  accept  these 
purely  personal  reports  of  moral  and 
spiritual  phenomena  as  If  they  were 
as 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

authoritative  reflections  of  that  vast 
order  which  reveals  itself  only  to  the 
sane,  the  humble,  the  pure  in  heart. 
The  work  of  a  diseased  man  of  genius 
often  possesses  the  fascination  which 
resides  in  pathology,  and  often  imparts 
the  joy  of  art;  but  it  is  a  personal  mem 
orandum  and  not  a  record  of  universal 
truth.  The  exaltation  of  personality, 
which  is  one  of  the  great  notes  of  mod 
ern  as  contrasted  with  ancient  literature, 
and  the  immense  emphasis  on  the  au 
thority  of  individuality  in  a  democratic 
society,  have  given  us  a  vast,  rich  litera 
ture  which  is  of  the  highest  importance 
as  a  disclosure  of  what  is  in  man,  but 
some  of  which  has  not  authority  as  a 
revelation  of  what  life  is  in  its  fullness, 
nor  of  a  man  in  the  highest  reaches  of  his 
nature.  A  man  of  genius  who  is  insane 
is  vastly  more  interesting  than  a  com 
monplace  lunatic,  but  they  are  both  mad ; 
and  the  ravings  and  illusions  of  an  entire 
asylum  do  not  count  against  the  word  of 
one  sane  man. 

a6 


A  Saint  of  To-Day 

EVERY  age  has  its  saints,  but  it 
often  happens  that  an  age  does  not 
recognize  its  holy  men  and  women  until 
the  light  of  immortality  interprets  them. 
This  lack  of  discernment  is  due,  not  to 
any  unwillingness  to  see,  but  to  the  ten 
acity  of  accepted  forms  and  ways  of  ex 
pression.  Sainthood  is  still  identified  in 
many  minds  with  asceticism,  and  the 
saint  who  appears  among  us,  living  in 
all  the  great  human  relations,  bearing 
the  common  lot,  speaking  the  universal 
human  speech,  passes  on  her  way  un 
noticed  because  those  who  surround  and 
love  her  are  looking  for  the  mediaeval 
dress,  the  withdrawal  from  the  world, 
the  crossed  hands,  the  downcast  eyes. 
Blessed  are  the  saints  who  sought  holi 
ness,  in  other  times,  in  escape  from  the 
world,  and  became  types  of  the  pure 
and  good  in  ages  of  violence,  passion, 
and  corruption.  In  its  calendar  of 
27 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

saints,  as  in  its  tender  and  reverent 
regard  for  the  mother  of  Christ,  the 
Roman  Catholic  Church  has  recognized 
and  responded  to  a  deep  and  wholesome 
human  instinct.  Men  need  the  vision 
of  holy  men  and  women  walking  stain 
less  along  the  perilous  ways  of  life, 
indifferent  to  petty  ambitions,  lifted 
above  the  pride  of  place  and  power, 
consecrated  to  purity,  to  righteousness, 
to  sweetness,  and  to  service;  the  beau 
tiful  company  of  those  whose  lives  are 
revelations  of  the  heart  of  the  Infinite, 
and  upon  whom,  amid  the  shadows  of 
time,  the  light  of  immortality  visibly  rests. 
But  these  stainless  and  radiant  spirits 
have  not  ceased  to  walk  among  men 
because  ideals  of  service  have  changed 
their  forms  and  the  active  modern  age 
has  succeeded  the  meditative  Middle 
Age.  The  saint  of  to-day  is  not  less 
saintly  because  she  wears  no  distinctive 
garb  and  seeks  no  refuge  from  the 
storms  of  life.  In  all  the  ways  of  life 
to-day,  in  every  field  of  work,  in  a. 
.28 


A  Saint  of  To-Day 

thousand  obscure  households,  there  are 
saints  who  are  loved,  but  who  are  not 
recognized.  To  know  the  saint  under 
all  garbs  is,  perhaps,  to  have  something 
in  one's  self  which  responds  to  holiness; 
to  possess  something  akin  in  its  possi 
bilities,  though  not  in  its  development, 
to  saintliness.  In  any  event,  to  know 
the  saint  when  she  comes  among  us  is 
not  only  to  render  what  is  due  of  rever 
ence,  but  to  receive  most  fully  and 
intelligently  what  she  has  to  give  us. 

This  saint  of  to-day  was  known,  as 
saints  are  always  known,  by  her  beautiful 
humility.  When  her  friends  addressed 
her,  as  they  sometimes  did  with  perfect 
sincerity  but  under  the  masque  of 
humor,  as  the  saint,  she  always  and  with 
kindred  touch  of  humor  spoke  of  her 
self  as  the  sinner.  Of  the  rare  loveliness 
of  her  nature,  the  beautiful  and  winning 
sweetness  of  her  life,  she  was  as  uncon 
scious  as  is  the  flower  of  its  delicate 
coloring;  and  as  the  flower  breathes  its 
fragrance  into  the  air  without  knowing 
29 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

that  virtue  has  gone  from  it,  so  did  she 
exhale  a  rare  and  uplifting  influence  of 
which  she  took  no  note.  In  all  the 
long  and  shining  calendar  of  saints  none 
was  more  simple,  unaffected,  and  child 
like  in  spirit  than  she;  holiness  clothed 
her  like  a  garment,  but  she  was  as  free 
from  conventional  pietism  as  the  child 
who  knows  his  father  intimately  and  loves 
him  with  -a  perfect  love  is  free  from 
conventional  phrases  of  formal  affection. 
Life  was  so  deeply  and  wholly  religious  to 
her  that  she  had  long  ceased  to  think  of 
it  as  a  form  of  faith,  a  kind  of  activity,  a 
field  of  endeavor.  This  childlike  uncon 
sciousness  made  her  the  most  delightful 
of  companions,  the  gentlest  of  teachers, 
the  most  faithful  of  friends.  She  could 
speak  of  the  highest  things  without 
affectation;  she  could  touch  the  most 
sensitive  places  without  giving  pain; 
she  could  make  the  divinest  credible 
without  the  aid  of  text  or  argument. 
She  was,  indeed,  a  beautiful  version  of 
the  Gospel  in  the  most  human  speech. 
30 


A  Saint  of  To-Day 

Like  all  true  saints,  she  was  intensely 
and  unaffectedly  human.  For  more  than 
seventy  years  she  had  seen  life  in  many 
remote  places,  had  known  many  kinds 
of  men,  had  done  many  kinds  of  work 
with  unfailing  freshness  of  feeling  and 
with  the  strength  and  joy  of  perfect 
health.  Then  came  sickness,  and  for 
seven  years  she  lay  helpless  in  her  room, 
watched  over  with  tireless  vigilance  and 
cared  for  with  beautiful  devotion;  for 
such  as  she  evoke  from  others  that  which 
they  give  freely  from  their  own  natures. 
In  that  change  from  free  activity  to 
helpless  invalidism  there  must  have  been 
a  terrible  spiritual  struggle;  and  in  those 
long  days  and  longer  nights  there  must 
have  been  hours  of  inexpressible  weari 
ness;  but  no  repining  ever  came  from 
her  lips;  in  the  time  of  most  acute  suf 
fering  there  was  no  touch  of  querulous- 
ness.  She  always  spoke  of  her  suf 
ferings,  if  she  spoke  at  all,  in  an  imper 
sonal  way;  she  was  always  well,  though 
her  frail  body  was  often  sorely  afflicted. 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

Her  spirit,  securely  housed  in  undisturbed 
and  serene  faith,  was  impregnable. 

So  deep  was  her  faith  that  it  gave 
her  a  beautiful  freedom  in  the  world; 
she  lived  joyously  in  her  Father's  house. 
And  because  she  was  free  she  had  one 
great  resource  which  some  saints  have 
denied  themselves  —  a  delightful  and 
never-failing  humor.  This  great  gift,  so 
often  misunderstood,  is  itself  an  evidence 
of  immortality.  For  the  soul  of  humor 
is  the  consciousness  of  the  contrast 
between  the  greatness  of  man's  destiny 
and  the  absurdity  of  some  of  his  inter 
ests  and  occupations.  It  is  pre-eminently 
the  resource  of  those  who  can  play  with 
the  incongruities  of  life  because  they  know 
its  transcendent  significance;  of  those  who 
can  give  themselves  the  liberty  of  the 
house  because  they  are  at  home  in  it.  So 
there  came  to  her  a  vivacity,  an  ease,  a 
charm  of  disposition  and  of  talk,  which 
made  her  room  a  place  of  peace  and  joy 
and  often  of  gayety.  She  was  not  afraid 
to  be  happy,  and  her  happiness  per- 
32 


A  Saint  of  To-Day 

vaded  the  place  in  which  she  suffered. 
Among  those  who  read  these  words 
few  will  recognize  the  portrait;  if  it 
were  otherwise,  even  this  slight  sketch 
could  not  have  been  written.  The 
record  is  made  to  remind  the  despond 
ent,  the  skeptical,  the  scoffing,  and  all 
who  bear  heavy  crosses,  that  in  this  age 
of  immense  practical  activity,  of  vast 
enterprises,  of  absorbing  pursuit  of  the 
things  that  perish  in  the  using,  of  haste, 
tumult,  and  restlessness,  holy  men  and 
women  still  walk  the  earth  as  of  old, 
saintly  lives  still  bear  the  fruit  of  peace 
and  love  in  quiet  places,  and  the  highest 
virtues  still  have  their  eloquent  wit 
nesses.  Eighty-four  years  this  saint  of 
to-day  breathed  the  air  of  the  modern 
world,  shared  in  its  work  and  spoke  its 
language,  and  went  out  of  life  as  stain 
less  as  she  entered  it;  leaving  behind 
her  a  memory  which  has  become  part 
of  the  imperishable  wealth  of  all  who 
passed  her  way  and  felt  the  spell  of  her 
radiant  spirit. 

33 


The  Mask  of  the  Years 

THE  sunlight  has  marked  the  hours 
for  centuries  on  old  dials  in  Eng 
lish  gardens,  but  there  remains  no  record 
of  their  number  or  their  beginning.  In 
the  heart  of  the  earth  there  are  ancient 
memories  which  have  been  deciphered; 
and  men  have  kept,  for  a  part  of  their 
life  in  the  world,  a  register  of  their 
thoughts  and  deeds.  But  no  one  knows 
when  time  began,  nor  does  any  one  fore 
see  its  ending.  So  accustomed  are  we 
to  its  divisions  and  sub-divisions  that  we 
forget  that  it  has  no  real  existence  out 
side  our  own  minds.  It  is  a  universal 
convention,  but  it  is  only  a  convention; 
something  agreed  upon  and  accepted  for 
convenience;  an  accommodation  to  our 
limited  vision  and  knowledge.  So  long 
has  this  convention  been  established  and 
so  universal  is  its  acceptance  that  we  have 
fallen  into  the  habit  of  setting  it  in  anti- 
34 


The  Mask  of  the  Years 

thesis  with  eternity;  forgetting  that  it  is 
only  a  very  imperfect  attempt  to  bring 
eternity  within  the  range  of  our  expe 
rience  and  to  make  it,  if  not  comprehen 
sible,  at  least  usable.  Time  is  one  way 
of  reckoning  the  bit  of  eternity  which 
our  earth  or  our  race  remembers.  There 
is  nothing  outside  ourselves  which  cor 
responds  to  it;  it  is  a  convenient  and 
necessary  fiction;  eternity  is  the  only 
reality. 

The  time-sense  is  of  importance  be 
cause  it  helps  us  to  give  our  lives  order 
and  to  keep  us  in  working  relations  with 
our  fellows;  but  it  is  the  sense  of  eternity 
which  makes  deep  thinking  and  noble 
living  possible.  Time  is  a  little  section 
of  the  great  whole  which  is  eternity;  it  is 
a  detail  in  a  great  plan;  to  live  as  if  it 
were  all  of  life,  to  see  things  as  if  their 
time-relations  expressed  their  real  signifi 
cance,  to  value  our  opportunities  and 
tasks  and  burdens  as  if  they  were  related 
to  the  years  which  we  number,  is  to  put  a 
part  in  place  of  the  whole  and  to  miss  the 
35 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

meaning  and  glory  of  living.  It  has  been 
said  of  Dante  that  he  saw  life  under  the 
aspect  of  eternity.  When  he  looked  at 
the  seed,  the  tree  stood  before  him;  when 
he  saw  the  sowing,  he  saw  in  the  same 
vision  the  harvesting;  in  every  act  he 
discerned  a  cause  whose  effect  was  pres 
ent,  in  every  deed  he  foresaw  the  fruitage 
in  power  or  in  misery.  He  did  not  look 
ahead;  he  simply  looked  into  the  heart  of 
things;  he  saw  things  through  the  sense 
of  eternity.  The  greatness  and  the  ter 
ror  of  "  The  Divine  Comedy  "  lies  in  the 
fact  that  it  destroys  the  fiction  of  time 
and  makes  us  suddenly  aware  that  on 
this  very  to-day,  the  hours  of  which  are 
registered  on  dials  in  sunny  gardens,  we 
are  in  eternity. 

In  so  far  as  art  is  noble  and  significant 
it  annihilates  the  sense  of  time  and  brings 
us  face  to  face  with  the  beauty  and  the 
terror  of  eternity.  The  Sistine  Madonna 
sets  the  mother  in  the  light  of  eternity, 
and  all  heads  are  uncovered  and  all  voices 
are  hushed  in  the  sudden  discernment  of 
36 


The  Mask  of  the  Years 

the  meaning  of  motherhood  in  that  lan 
guage  of  the  spirit  which  is  the  speech 
of  eternity,  when  all  disguises  are  torn 
away  and  the  divinity  of  true  living  is 
revealed.  The  "  Last  Judgment  "  fills 
us  with  awe,  not  because  it  is  a  picture  of 
a  great  event  to  come  in  some  distant  age, 
but  because  it  makes  us  aware  that  we 
are  sifted,  tried,  and  judged  hour  by  hour, 
and  that  the  great  artist  has  dramatized 
in  a  moment  of  time  the  eternal  process. 
There  are  portrait-painters  who  have 
such  power  of  divination,  of  penetrating 
the  mask  of  the  countenance  to  the  char 
acter,  that  their  canvases  are  revelations 
of  the  eternal  elements  in  the  nature  of 
the  man  or  woman  behind  the  touches 
and  moldings  of  time.  Whenever  the 
soul  comes  into  view,  the  man  is  seen 
under  the  aspect  of  eternity.  It  is  one 
of  the  highest  services  of  art  that  it  shows 
life  under  the  aspects  of  eternity;  the  fic 
tion  of  time  dissolves  under  the  search 
ing  glance  of  the  great  artist  or  thinker. 
Shakespeare's  genius  lies  in  the  unique 
37 

215068 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

power  with  which  he  gives  us  the  feature 
of  the  time  and  the  hidden  soul  which  is 
eternal  behind  it;  the  graphic  dramatic 
force  with  which  he  delineates  the  deed, 
the  masterful  insight  with  which  he  re 
lates  it  to  the  man  and  his  fortunes. 

In  this  double  power  the  Bible  is 
unique  among  the  books  of  the  world. 
Concrete,  pictorial,  historic,  it  flashes 
light  at  every  turn  on  the  ultimate  re 
sults  and  conditions;  picturing  with  mar 
velous  vividness  the  sowing  of  the  seed, 
it  instantly  discloses  the  harvest.  In  this 
lies  its  pervading,  prophetic  quality;  its 
steady  discernment  of  the  things  that  are 
to  come  because  at  every  stage  it  lays 
bare  the  hidden  process  which,  in  the  eye 
of  the  prophet,  is  accomplished  as  soon 
as  it  is  set  in  motion.  So  the  Christ 
moves  to  his  martyrdom  with  such  cer 
tainty  that  long  before  the  star  shines 
over  Bethlehem  the  agony  of  the  cross 
is  announced. 

The  years  come  out  of  the  great  silence 
in  unbroken  succession  because  we  need 
38 


The  Mask  of  the  Years 

their  divisions  in  our  endeavor  to  realize, 
in  daily  experience,  the  continuity  of 
eternity.  They  give  us  something  to 
grasp  and  use ;  but  they  must  not  confuse 
or  blind  us  to  the  truth  that  the  life  we 
now  live  is  eternal,  and  that  while  we 
number  our  years  and  distinguish  them 
one  from  another,  we  are  already  in 
eternity.  To-morrow  is  already  in 
to-day;  the  distant  future  is  part  of  this 
swiftly  departing  present.  What  we 
think  and  do  in  this  brief  instant  we  are 
and  shall  be  in  the  far-off  cycles  to  which 
we  move.  Our  deeds  are  not  of  the  day; 
they  are  of  eternity.  Below  all  the 
shiftings  and  changes,  the  moods  and 
emotions,  the  depressions  and  exaltations, 
something  indestructible  is  shaping  itself 
as  surely  as  below  the  bareness  and  icy 
bondage  of  winter  a  vast  life  is  organiz 
ing  itself. 

Our  sorrows  are  registered  by  the  days, 

but  if  the  root  of  submission  and  faith  is 

in  them  they  are  as  certainly  overpast  as 

if  already  the  shadows  were  gone  and  the 

39 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

heavens  were  soft  and  gracious  over  our 
heads.  So  far  as  the  righteous  are  able 
to  look  through  the  mask  of  the  years, 
light  is  not  only  sown  for  them;  it  already 
floods  the  skies.  So  far  as  the  high  pur 
pose  is  deep-rooted  and  loyally  held,  no 
bility  and  strength  and  freedom  are  al 
ready  achieved.  So  far  as  love  is  pure, 
unselfish,  and  sacrificial,  it  is  already  safe 
against  the  ravages  of  death.  Life  is 
not  yet  at  the  flood,  but  it  is  ours  as  truly 
as  if  we  were  in  full  possession  of  its  un 
bounded  resources;  the  perfect  stature  is 
yet  afar  off,  but  if  the  law  of  growth  is 
working  in  us,  it  is  already  ours  as  surely 
as  if  we  had  completely  attained.  The 
sorrows  which  the  years  bring  the  years 
take  away;  they  are  of  the  time  and  the 
place,  and  we  are  not  the  slaves  of  time 
and  place;  but  our  joys,  having  their 
source  in  the  soul,  are  indestructible.  In 
the  darkest  night  we  know  that  the  day  is 
below  the  horizon;  the  shadow  on  the 
dial  does  not  confuse  us;  we  know  that 
the  sun  is  on  the  way.  In  our  deepest 

4° 


The  Mask  of  the  Years 

griefs,  if  we  look  into  our  souls,  the  joy 
of  eternal  possession  already  stirs;  it 
needs  but  the  ripening  of  our  faith  and 
patience  to  bear  its  perfect  flower.  The 
life  of  love  is  not  counted  by  the  years; 
once  born  in  the  heart,  it  abides  forever. 
Sown  in  the  furrows  of  time,  it  blooms  in 
those  immortal  fields  where  no  shadows 
wait  to  hide  the  sun  and  no  chill  of  death 
checks  the  eternal  growth. 


Love  and  Work 

IDEALISM  as  an  interpretation  of 
life,  a  vision  of  ultimate  ends  and 
conditions,  has  always  won  to  itself  the 
ardent,  the  poetic,  and  the  high-minded 
—  the  great  company  of  seekers  after 
light  and  love  in  every  generation,  who 
rebel  against  the  hardness  and  injustice 
of  the  world,  hate  its  noise  and  brutality, 
its  fierce  competitions  and  its  stolid  indif 
ference  to  the  defeated.  Even  in  the 
presence  of  the  great  purpose  which  runs 
through  the  visible  order  of  things  and 
the  society  in  which  men  have  arranged 
themselves,  and  which  has  come  to  light, 
as  one  of  the  most  spiritual  men  of  the 
day  has  said,  just  in  time  to  save  some 
of  the  best  men  and  women  from  despair, 
it  is  hard  for  the  sensitive  and  aspiring 
and  tender-hearted  to  bear  the  sorrows 
of  the  world  and  to  sit  with  a  cheerful 
spirit  while  so  many  losses  ravage  the 
42 


Love  and  Work 

homes  that  are  dear  to  them  and  de 
spoil  the  best  fortunes  of  men.  There 
are  hosts  of  men  and  women  who  go 
through  life  with  a  noble  discontent  in 
their  hearts,  a  sense  of  loneliness  and 
isolation  in  their  souls;  they  are  home 
sick  for  a  world  in  which  men  help 
instead  of  smite,  bind  up  instead  of 
wound,  are  quick  to  recognize  the  good 
instead  of  eager  to  find  the  evil,  stand 
ready  in  all  crises  to  rebuild  the  fallen, 
are  patient  of  spirit  with  the  weak,  love 
the  sinner  while  they  loathe  the  sin,  are 
kindly  in  speech  because  kindly  in 
thought,  are  indifferent  to  external  con 
ditions  because  conditions  are  the  hap 
penings  of  life  while  the  soul  is  its  great 
and  enduring  reality,  are  bound  together 
in  a  vast  conspiracy  to  cheer,  to  aid,  to 
give  heart  and  hope,  to  make  the  high 
ways  of  life  bloom  with  spontaneous 
kindnesses,  and  to  make  the  lonely  world 
a  warm,  hospitable,  many-windowed 
home  for  all  who  pass  this  way  on  the 
journey  of  life. 

43 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

If  the  truth  were  told,  what  confes 
sions  of  solitude,  of  heartache,  of  lone 
liness  of  spirit,  would  come  like  a  flood 
from  those  whom  men  count  happy 
because  they  are  intrenched  against  the 
blows  of  disaster  by  all  manner  of  mate 
rial  possession!  'The  heart  knoweth 
his  own  bitterness  "  is  one  of  the  truest 
and  saddest  of  all  the  summings  up  of 
experience  in  the  Book  of  Proverbs;  and 
where  there  is  no  bitterness  there  is 
always  loneliness.  In  whatever  circum 
stances  men  are  born  in  this  world,  they 
are  all  born  in  exile;  and  in  exile  pal 
aces  are  often  as  prison-like  as  hovels. 

This  is  the  penalty  of  immortality; 
the  price  we  pay  for  the  birthright  of 
the  divine  in  us.  To  have  the  power  of 
creating  heaven  in  the  imagination  is  to 
bare  one's  heart  to  the  coldness  and 
hardness  of  the  world;  to  see  Paradise 
at  a  distance  is  to  make  the  desert  in 
which  we  are  traveling  more  barren  and 
lonely.  As  one  who  loves  the  sweetness 
of  the  open  meadow,  the  solitude  of 
44 


woods,  and  the  cool  musing  of  running 
brooks  finds  the  noise  and  odor  and 
crowding  of  the  city  almost  intolerable, 
so  those  who  carry  a  vision  of  heaven  in 
their  souls  find  the  unkindness,  the  tu 
mult,  and  the  hardness  of  this  present 
world  almost  unbearable.  They  have 
often  fled  from  it  and  sought  refuge  in 
isolation;  they  have  made  homes  for 
themselves  in  the  vast  quiet  of  the  Nile 
valley,  they  have  built  monasteries  on 
almost  inaccessible  heights,  they  have 
buried  themselves  out  of  the  sight  and 
sound  of  the  world  in  all  manner  of 
lonely  refuges.  But  wherever  they  have 
gone  they  have  carried  the  passionate 
human  heart  with  them,  and  even  when 
they  have  found  the  peace  which  some 
times  flows  out  of  the  heart  of  silence, 
they  have  never  found  the  perfect  society, 
the  cloudless  day  of  joy,  the  redeemed 
world. 

If  Idealism  were  at  bottom  an  explana 
tion  of  life  as  it  reveals  itself  within  the 
limits  of  time,  it  would  often  seem  the 
45 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

idlest  of  dreams,  the  most  untenable  of 
philosophies;  but  it  is  a  solution  of  the 
great  problem  only  at  the  end  of  a 
world-wide  and  an  almost  illimitable 
process  of  growth  and  unfolding;  it  is 
the  vision  of  an  ultimate  perfection,  not 
a  statement  of  present  conditions;  it  is, 
at  the  heart,  a  glimpse  into  the  great 
mystery  of  education  which  makes  this 
life  not  only  bearable  but  marvelously 
spiritual  and  hope-inspiring. 

The  Idealism  which  lies  within  every 
man's  reach  and  in  every  man's  need  is 
surrender  to  the  urgent  and  passionate 
desire  to  give  his  own  spirit  the  shape 
and  quality  of  the  divine  spirit,  and  to 
create  in  himself  those  traits  and  that 
attitude  which  he  yearns  to  find  wrought 
into  the  fiber  of  society;  to  be  in  his 
own  soul  that  which  he  wishes  all  men 
were.  Conditions,  whether  easy  or  dif 
ficult,  are  secondary;  the  eternal  element 
of  peace  and  happiness  lies  in  every 
man's  soul,  beyond  the  reach  of  acci 
dent.  They  who  seek  heaven  must  take 
46 


Love  and  Work 

refuge  in  their  own  spirits,  not  in  some 
solitary  place  at  a  distance;  and  they 
must  find  it,  not  in  more  congenial  cir 
cumstances,  but  in  a  freer  and  nobler 
putting  forth  of  the  best  in  themselves. 
The  true  Idealist  is  not  a  dreamer  in  a 
world  of  realities  which  make  his  dream 
incredible,  nor  is  he  a  refugee  escaping 
from  conditions  which  he  cannot  bear 
to  a  more  comfortable  place;  he  is  a 
man  who  is  patiently  and  often  pain 
fully  shaping  his  life  in  harmony  with 
an  inward  purpose;  who  is  mastering 
crude  materials  that  he  may  make  the 
vision  in  whose  light  he  lives  shine 
before  the  eyes  of  men  whose  sight  is 
less  clear  than  his;  who  is  doing  com 
monplace  things  in  a  spirit  which  gives 
them  the  beauty  of  a  high  purpose,  as 
the  great  architect  redeems  the  mean 
ness  of  the  hidden  stone  by  the  splendor 
of  the  structure  in  which  it  finds  its 
place. 

Men    are    made    happy,    not    by    the 
things  which  surround  them  nor  by  the 
47 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

things  which  they  take  to  themselves, 
but  by  the  noble  putting  forth  of  the 
soul  in  love  and  work;  the  two  great 
activities  which  are  never  divorced  in 
the  harmonious  and  balanced  life,  the 
two  languages  in  which  every  true  Ideal 
ist  makes  confession  of  his  faith  and 
gives  evidence  of  its  reality.  For  love 
is  the  ultimate  expression  of  faith,  and 
without  works  faith  is  a  vain  shadow  of 
reality. 


LUTHER,  who  at  his  best  had  com 
mand  of  that  kind  of  speech  which 
combines  clearness  of  statement,  beauty 
of  imagination,  and  warmth  of  heart, 
whose  words,  as  Carlyle  has  said,  were 
"  half  battles,"  has  left  an  exhortation  to 
fraternal  love  and  sacrifice  which  is  a 
noble  sermon  compacted  into  a  para 
graph:  "Every  Christian  should  be 
unto  his  fellow-man  a  willing  servant, 
willing  to  help  and  aid  his  neighbor,  even 
as  God  acts  towards  us  through  Christ. 
Thus  all  of  God's  gifts  must  flow  from 
one  into  the  other  and  be  common  to 
all,  flowing  from  Christ  to  us,  from  us 
to  our  neighbor,  who  stands  in  need 
thereof."  These  words  might  be  taken 
as  a  description  of  the  fundamental  office 
of  the  Christian  Church,  which  is  not 
only  to  bear  testimony  to  the  Christ  who 
lived  and  died  nineteen  hundred  years 
49 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

ago,  but  to  share  with  all  men  that  truth 
which  he  communicated,  to  divide  with 
all  men  the  love  of  which  his  life  was 
the  supreme  expression,  and  to  include 
all  men  in  the  universal  care  of  God. 

For  the  individual  man  or  woman  who 
is  trying  to  repeat  the  life  of  Christ  these 
words  have  the  most  searching  signifi 
cance.  Over  the  portal  of  every  day's 
life  they  ought  to  be  written;  for  unless 
the  truth  which  they  contain  is  practiced, 
there  is  no  real  religion.  The  final  evi 
dence  of  religion  is  always  the  fruit  it 
bears.  No  conformity  to  creed,  no  rigid 
ity  of  observation  of  ritual,  no  devotion 
to  any  church  as  an  organization,  no 
ritualistic  act  or  service,  can  be  the  final 
test  of  the  love  of  Christ  in  a  man's 
heart.  The  final  test  of  the  presence  of 
that  love  is  always  the  disposition  to 
treat  others  as  Christ  treats  us,  to  do 
unto  others  as  Christ  has  done  unto  us, 
and  to  illustrate  in  our  relations  with 
others  the  charity,  kindness,  and  sacri 
ficial  spirit  which  gave  the  life  of  Christ 
50 


A  Text  from  Luther 

and  his  death  their  beautiful  and  supreme 
significance.  In  the  clamor  of  contend 
ing  interpretations  of  the  Christian  life, 
in  the  tumult  of  antagonistic  claims  of  au 
thority  from  this  church  or  from  that, 
in  all  the  uncertainty  of  thought,  or  prac 
tice,  or  of  organization  which  prevails 
throughout  the  world  to-day,  the  spirit 
of  Christ  manifested  in  our  relations 
with  our  fellows  is  the  definite  and  fixed 
thing  which  any  man  or  woman  may 
learn  and  which  every  man  and  woman 
ought  to  practice.  Better  a  thousand 
times  heterodoxy  of  opinion  than  heter 
odoxy  of  spirit;  better  a  thousand  times 
the  imperfect  ritual  than  the  selfish  heart. 
It  is  best  to  think  right  and  to  worship 
God  wisely  and  nobly;  but  if  the  Bible 
teaches  anything  definitely,  it  teaches  the 
great  fundamental  fact  that  what  the  In 
finite  cares  for  supremely  is  not  correct 
ness  of  opinion  or  of  ritual,  but  the  right 
spirit,  not  only  towards  man,  but  to 
wards  every  creature  He  has  made. 
This  is  the  test  to  which  the  Old  Testa- 
Si 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

ment,  through  its  great  teachers,  was  con 
stantly  bringing  the  Jewish  people;  and 
it  is  one  of  the  awful  tragedies  of  the 
race  that  those  who  were  highest  in  the 
Church,  most  orthodox  in  opinion,  most 
scrupulous  in  ritual,  failed  most  com 
pletely  to  interpret  and  practice  the  spirit 
of  Christ  No  man  is  saved  by  his  or 
thodoxy,  but  any  man  may  be  saved  by 
his  life;  no  man  is  saved  by  his  church- 
manship,  but  any  man  may  be  saved  by 
his  character. 

Men  are  not  likely  to  undervalue  the 
importance  of  correct  opinion  and  proper 
ritual,  but  they  have  shown  a  constant 
tendency  to  undervalue  and  obscure  the 
supreme  importance  of  the  right  relations 
toward  their  fellows;  and  Luther's  words, 
spoken  in  the  sixteenth  century,  are  as 
applicable  to  the  twentieth  century  as  if 
they  had  been  written  by  a  contemporary 
prophet  or  teacher.  In  the  exact  degree 
in  which  God's  gifts  in  our  keeping  are 
made  common  to  all,  in  which  the  spirit 
of  Christ  received  by  us  is  illustrated  in 
52 


A  Text  from  Luther 

our  lives,  in  which  the  love  of  God, 
accepted  by  us,  is  not  only  passed  on,  but 
interpreted  by  our  own  attitude  toward 
others  in  thought,  word,  and  deed,  have 
we  a  right  to  consider  ourselves  follow 
ers  of  Christ. 


53 


The  Escape  from  Fear 

THE  story  of  man  in  this  world  is  the 
story  of  getting  away  from  fear. 
Fear  was  the  universal  shadow  that 
rested  over  the  fore-fathers  of  the  race. 
They  were  afraid  of  everything,  and  they 
had  reason  to  be,  because  everything 
seemed  hostile  to  them.  Even  now,  after 
thousands  of  years  of  observation,  ex 
perience,  discovery,  and  obedience,  there 
are  moments  when  nature  seems  to  be  the 
enemy  of  man  in  spite  of  the  fact  that 
science  has  taught  us  that  nature  is  our 
beneficent  and  wonderful  friend  of  whose 
services  the  achievements  of  the  magi 
cians  were  faint  symbols.  The  earliest 
men  were  surrounded  by  perils  which 
must  have  sunk  deep  into  their  conscious 
ness  and  made  life  one  prolonged  and 
painful  watchfulness.  The  sun  smote 
them  with  fire;  the  winter  froze  them 
with  ice;  the  great  storms,  which  they 
54 


The  Escape  from  Fear 

could  not  predict  and  against  which  they 
could  not  provide,  destroyed  them;  wild 
beasts,  poisonous  serpents  and  venomous 
insects  devoured  or  poisoned  them;  tem 
pests  swept  their  fragile  homes  out  of 
existence;  the  lightning  blasted  them;  dis 
ease  came  out  of  the  ground;  and  death 
awaited  them  at  every  turn. 

And  when,  in  the  crude  beginnings  of 
thought,  they  felt  the  presence  of  a  per 
sonal  power  behind  all  these  forces,  that 
power  was  malignant  and  threatening. 
The  fear  of  God  with  early  men  was  a 
cowering  and  crushing  fear.  God  was 
pursuing  them;  their  safety  lay  in  escap 
ing  his  attention.  He  was  angry  with 
them;  they  placated  him.  He  was  jeal 
ous  of  them;  they  concealed  their  good 
fortune.  He  was  envious  of  them;  they 
hardly  dared  to  be  happy.  A  man's  life 
was  a  long  struggle  to  protect  himself 
from  a  God  who  beset  him  behind  and 
before,  not  to  protect,  but  to  blight  and 
destroy. 

And  to  the  first  men  their  fellow-men 
55 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

were  as  dangerous  as  nature  and  God. 
The  stranger  was  necessarily  an  enemy; 
to  meet  him  safely  one  must  always  be 
ready  with  a  weapon  or  with  a  blow.  All 
differences  of  race,  of  country,  of  lan 
guage,  were  the  symbols  of  an  aliena 
tion  full  of  hatred  and  antagonism.  Be 
fore  the  first  Christmas  fear  was  a  uni 
versal  emotion,  and  such  happiness  and 
peace  as  man  got  out  of  life  he  snatched 
with  a  fearful  joy  of  escaping  the  re 
lentless  bitterness  of  nature,  the  jeal 
ousies  of  the  gods,  and  the  antagonism 
and  hatred  of  his  fellows.  When  the 
shepherds  saw  the  angels  above  their 
flocks,  their  first  feeling  was  not  one  of 
exaltation  and  joy,  but  of  fear;  and  the 
first  words  the  angels  said  were  spoken 
to  calm  those  fears.  Before  the  great 
and  beautiful  hymn  which  heaven  has 
sung  on  earth,  "  Peace  and  good  will  to 
wards  men,"  could  be  heard  the  angels 
had  to  say,  "  Fear  not  I  " 

The  fear  of  God  in  the  old  blasting 
sense  of  the  word  ended  when  Christ 
56 


The  Escape  from  Fear 

came  to  cast  out  fear  and  to  write  in  its 
place  another  word,  "  Love."  He  came 
to  teach  men  that  even  the  things  that 
seemed  unfriendly  were  expressions  of 
the  divine  friendship,  and  the  disasters, 
sorrows,  and  hardships  of  life  had  be 
hind  them  the  intelligence  of  an  infinite 
love.  Ever  since  that  message  came 
men  have  been  slowly  casting  out  fear. 
Life  long  ago  ceased  to  mean  for  them 
an  attempt  to  elude  the  anger  of  God 
and  has  become  an  opportunity;  not  a 
thing  to  run  away  from,  but  to  run  into, 
so  to  speak;  for,  as  Phillips  Brooks  once 
said,  "  The  way  to  escape  from  God  is 
to  escape  into  him;"  that  is  to  say,  to 
accept  the  order  of  life  as  it  is  revealed 
in  our  experience  as  a  discipline  of  love 
and  not  of  anger.  Fear  makes  men 
cowards,  and  the  coward  is  as  brutal  in 
his  panic  as  the  savage.  Fear  turns  civ 
ilized  men  into  savages,  and  humanity 
is  never  so  base  as  when  it  is  seeking  in 
a  great  crisis  to  protect  itself  instead  of 
seeking  to  protect  others,  For  the  spirit 
57 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

of  Christ  is  the  spirit  of  a  love  which 
casteth  out  fear,  not  only  because  it 
teaches  that  the  order  of  life  is  divinely 
fashioned,  but  because,  by  substituting 
the  love  of  others  for  the  love  of  self, 
it  makes  us  indifferent  to  personal  danger. 

There  is  no  place  in  the  world  for  fear 
if  one's  heart  is  set  to  deal  justly,  to 
walk  humbly,  to  help  gratefully,  and  to 
forget  one's  self.  The  greater  the 
danger,  the  greater  the  need  for  that 
valiant  spirit  which  enables  a  man  to 
walk  quietly  down  to  his  own  death  be 
cause  he  is  concerned  not  for  himself  but 
for  others. 

The  root  of  love  is  faith  in  the  good 
ness  of  God,  and  faith  is  to  be  used,  not 
when  the  skies  are  cloudless,  but  when 
they  are  black;  not  when  there  is  light 
on  all  the  paths,  but  when  darkness  cov 
ers  the  whole  face  of  the  earth  and  the 
paths  are  hidden  in  a  vast  confusion. 


Praying  and  Waiting 

IT  is  easy  to  pray  for  things  but  hard 
to  wait  for  them;  and  we  often  rush 
to  the  conclusion  that  because  prayers 
are  not  answered  in  a  moment  they  are 
not  answered  at  all.  A  little  thought 
would  end  this  kind  of  skepticism  and 
give  us  patience  to  wait  on  the  Lord 
without  repining  or  sinking  of  heart. 
Great  blessings  sometimes  come  sud 
denly,  but  none  before  they  have  been 
prepared  for  by  some  kind  of  spiritual 
training;  great  orators  sometimes  sud 
denly  come  to  light  in  apparently  com 
monplace  careers,  but  not  unless  there 
have  been  rich  possibilities  hidden  be 
neath  the  routine  of  daily  work.  No 
man,  in  any  great  crisis,  shows  a  gift  for 
speech  or  action  of  heroism  unless  the 
germs  of  those  things  were  already  in 
him.  Great  moments  do  not  put  great 
qualities  into  the  souls  of  men;  they  sim 
ply  reveal  what  is  already  there. 
59 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

The  fruits  of  character  cannot  be  real 
ized  until  the  seeds  of  nobility  have  had 
time  to  grow;  and  education  of  some 
kind  must  precede  all  forms  of  sustained 
strength.  Weak  men  have  often,  by 
prayer,  been  made  strong  in  critical 
moments,  but  they  acquire  the  habit  of 
strength  only  by  exercise.  The  weak 
arm  does  not  become  muscular  by  taking 
thought,  but  by  taking  exercise;  the 
irritable  temper  is  not  made  sweet  by  a 
sudden  act  of  will,  but  by  patient  repres 
sion  of  an  unhappy  tendency;  the  man 
of  unclean  mind  is  not  cleansed  because 
he  resolves  to  be  white,  but  because  he 
forms  the  habit  of  purity.  We  are  con 
tinually  asking  God  to  give  us  the  fruits 
of  character  without  the  discipline  of 
training,  not  realizing  that  we  are  asking 
him  to  do  for  us  the  work  that  alone 
would  strengthen  our  muscles  and  give 
us  the  power  we  crave.  We  ask  to  be 
fed  by  a  miracle  instead  of  tilling  the 
ground,  sowing  the  seed,  and  reaping 
the  harvest  with  our  own  hands,  and  so 
60 


Praying  and  Waiting 

getting  strength  from  the  soil.  He  is 
ready  to  help  us  in  any  time  of  need, 
but  moral  help  must  be  secured  by 
moral  exertion;  we  must  not  ask  God  to- 
pauperize  us.  Men  ought  to  pray  every 
day  for  sweetness  of  temper,  since  the 
lack  of  it  blights  countless  homes  and 
neutralizes  many  noble  qualities;  but 
they  ought  to  remember  that  sweetness 
is  born  out  of  the  subjection  of  strength, 
the  mastery  of  temper,  the  control  of  the 
tones  of  voice,  and  that  to  gain  the 
blessed  gift  one  must  wait  on  the  Lord, 
and  let  education  give  prayer  its  ultimate 
effectiveness. 


61 


The  Bugle  Call 

YEARS  ago,  in  a  foreign  city,  long 
after  midnight,  a  bugle  rang  out 
clear  and  penetrating  in  the  -darkness  that 
comes  before  dawn.  It  pierced  the  deep 
est  recesses  of  sleep  and  sounded  the 
great  note  of  action  and  adventure.  To 
what  duty  it  summoned  and  whither  it  led 
they  only  knew  to  whom  it  was  a  com 
mand;  but  a  great  company  of  those 
who  came  out  of  their  dreams  to  hear  it 
were  shaken  by  its  imperative  call,  and 
must  remember  it  as  an  impersonal  sym 
bol  of  that  divine  voice  which  from  time 
to  time  rings  in  the  innermost  courts  of  a 
man's  soul  with  the  music  of  great  deeds 
on  noble  fields.  Hosts  of  men  are  para 
lyzed  because  they  hear  no  voices  save 
those  that  weaken  and  betray  them  —  the 
voices  of  their  weariness,  indecision, 
skepticism,  weakness.  They  sleep  on 
their  arms  as  if  no  fight  were  to  be  won, 
no  soul  to  be  saved  from  its  baser 


The  Bugle  Call 

passions,  its  cowardly  moods.  If  they 
rouse  themselves,  it  is  -to  take  account  of 
their  discomfort;  to  note  that  the  night 
is  dark,  the  air  cold,  the  ground  hard. 
They  lie  bound  hand  and  foot  in  a 
stupor  of  uncertainty  and  discourage 
ment.  They  complain  of  their  hard 
ships,  repine  at  their  inaction,  waste  their 
courage  and  strength  in  hollow  excuses 
and  evasions.  So  intent  are  they  on  their 
deprivations  that  they  forget  the  cause 
which  they  set  out  to  serve  and  curse 
the  leaders  whom  they  no  longer  follow. 
Again  and  again  -the  bugle  rings  out  on 
the  night,  but  they  sleep  on  and  take 
their  rest  even  while  the  Master  is  be 
trayed  into  the  hands  of  his  enemies. 

They  drug  themselves  with  the  nar 
cotics  of  fatalism,  of  the  irresistible 
power  of  circumstances,  of  the  over 
whelming  force  of  the  obstacles  which 
surround  them;  they  lull  themselves  into 
sleep  with  a  thousand  excuses  and  eva 
sions.  If  they  had  been  equipped  with 
different  arms,  been  under  another  com- 
63 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

mand,  had  another  sort  of  drill,  been 
better  cared  for,  received  a  larger  meas 
ure  of  strength,  they  would  have  done 
such  heroic  things  and  won  victories  on 
such  glorious, fields!  And  while  they  lie 
in  a  stupor  of  weakness  the  bugles  ring 
and  a  thousand  men  about  them  spring 
to  arms  and  march  singing  to  the  good 
fortune  of  those  dangers  in.  which  men 
rise  to  sublime  heights  of  self-forgetful 
courage.  The  chance  which  is  the  di 
vine  opportunity  of  life  comes  to  them 
all,  and  they  make  that  great  refusal 
which  defeats  the  very  ends  for  which 
they  were  made  and  leaves  them  laggards 
and  deserters;  while  their  fellows,  who 
carry  the  same  weapons,  are  chilled  by 
the  same  air,  and  endure  the  same  hard 
ness,  arise  and  are  gone  before  the  dawn. 
Among  the  pitiful  tragedies  of  life  there 
is  none  more  pitiful  than  that  which  over 
takes  the  man  who  is  more  intent  on  his 
discomforts  and  the  things  which  are  de 
nied  him  than  on  his  opportunities  of 
work  and  self-denial  and  service. 
64 


The  Bugle  Call 

Savonarola  was  one  of  those  whose 
career  is  beset  with  every  sort  of  diffi 
culty,  whose  path  is  hard  and  solitary, 
who  is  alone  in  a  world  of  enemies.  He 
might  have  cried  out  to  his  Leader  that 
the  task  laid  upon  him  was  too  great 
for  his  strength,  that  the  fight  was  against 
overwhelming  odds,  that  if  he  was  to 
win  he  ought  to  have  had  a  thousand 
things  which  were  denied  him.  But  he 
thought  not  of  his  weakness  but  of  the 
strength  of  his  cause,  not  of  his  danger 
but  of  the  greatness  of  the  service  to 
which  he  was  called,  not  of  his  hardships 
but  of  his  glorious  chance  to  live  and 
die  fighting  the  good  fight  of  faith.  To 
him,  as  to  all  men,  came  the  doubts,  the 
questionings,  the  weariness,  the  sense 
of  great  weakness;  and  there  is  a  little 
poem  of  his  in  which  he  tells  us  how  he 
met  them: 

"  Down  by  the  road  of  evil 

Wanders  my  spirit; 
If  it  receive  not  succor, 
It  will  die  shortly. 
65 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

The  Devil  he  deceives  it 

With  his  false  reasoning; 
The  senses  they  promise  it 

Every  possible  pleasure ; 
The  world  ever  invites  it 

To  indulge  itself  in  iniquity: 
My  spirit  thus  tempted, 

Who  now  will  help  it  ?  — 

Help  thyself,  good-for-nothing, 

With  the  gift  that  God  gives  thee ; 

Thou  hast  full  power 
To  make  thyself  worthy. 

Thou  canst  not  be  conquered 

Save  thou  art  willing. 
Stronger  is  grace 

Than  every  adversity." 

There  are  times  when  a  man  must  say 
to  his  own  spirit,  "  Up,  thou  sluggard, 
and  away;  the  bugle  calls;  the  day  of 
battle  dawns."  Let  no  man  be  de 
ceived;  the  fortunes  of  his  soul  are  in  his 
own  hands.  He  may  beguile  himself  for 
a  time  with  the  dream  of  fatalism,  but 
even  while  he  dreams  he  knows  in  his 
heart  that  he  is  deceiving  himself.  He 
66 


The  Bugle  Call 

may  talk  of  his  limitations,  his  difficulties, 
his  conditions,  his  temperament;  but  in 
his  heart  he  knows  that  these  are  mere 
subterfuges;  that  he  has  bound  himself 
with  imaginary  fetters,  and  that  if  he 
will  arise  and  stand  erect  these  illusive 
bonds  will  fall  from  him.  He  may  not 
be  able  to  do  the  work  of  some  other  man, 
but  he  can  do  his  own  work,  and  that  is 
all  that  is  required.  Every  man  has  the 
strength  to  do  his  duty  if  he  chooses  to 
put  it  forth,  to  be  a  man  and  not  a  dumb, 
driven  creature,  the  mere  shape  of  a  man 
driven  like  a  cloud  of  dust  across  the 
field  of  life  by  the  wind  of  destiny.  He 
may  go  to  suffering,  hardness,  and  death, 
as  Savonarola  did;  but  these  things  are 
mere  incidents;  the  great  thing  is  that 
he  shall  strive  and  not  sleep.  The  prodi 
gal  slept  long,  but  he  heard  the  call  at 
last,  awoke,  and  became  a  man  once 
more  when  he  turned  from  the  beasts 
and  said,  "  I  will  go  to  my  father." 


67 


The  Upper  Room 

WHEN  the  first  day  of  unleavened 
bread  came,  Jesus  sent  Peter  and 
John  into  the  city,  and  told  them  that 
they  would  meet  a  man  whom  they  were 
to  follow  and  who  would  show  them  a 
room  in  which  the  passover  could  be 
eaten.  "  He  will  show  you  a  large  upper 
room  furnished  and  prepared;  there  make 
ready  for  us.  ...  When  the  hour  was 
come,  he  sat  down,  and  the  twelve 
apostles  with  him."  No  scene  in  his 
tory  is  more  simple  in  its  setting,  none 
more  memorable.  It  has  been  described 
with  beautiful  and  reverent  eloquence; 
it  has  been  painted  with  supreme  skill  by 
a  master  of  the  art;  it  has  been  rehearsed 
times  without  number  in  many  different* 
forms,  according  to  the  most  diverse  rit 
uals;  it  has  been  observed  as  a  simple 
breaking  of  bread  and  pouring  of  wine, 
and  it  has  been  celebrated  at  blazing 
68 


The  Upper  Room 

altars  by  richly  vested  priests;  but  its 
innermost  significance  can  never  be  en 
tirely  expressed  in  any  worship  nor  form 
ulated  in  any  creed.  The  beauty  and 
wonder  of  it  lie  on  the  further  side  of 
any  kind  of  language  which  men  have 
fashioned  to  give  ease  to  their  souls. 

But  one  great  fact  stands  out  in  this 
wonderful  scene:  the  upper  room  was 
the  place  of  meeting  between  the  Christ 
and  his  Apostles !  It  will  remain  for 
ever  the  symbol  of  the  communion  be 
tween  God  and  man;  the  quiet  place,  hid 
den  from  the  world,  where  man  meets 
God  and  is  fed  by  the  bread  of  life;  that 
food  by  which  the  soul  lives,  bestowed 
only  by  the  hand  of  God.  The  world  is 
full  of  men  and  women  who  have  eaten 
the  fruit  of  every  tree  except  the  tree  of 
life,  who  partake  of  everything  that  gives 
vigor  to  the  body,  but  never  sit  at  the 
invisible  table  where  that  bread  is  spread 
which  makes  one  stronger  than  death. 
Among  all  the  manifold  ironies  of  life 
there  is  none  so  terrible  as  the  well-nour- 
69 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

ished  body  and  the  starving  soul.  As 
there  are  beauitful  faces  in  which  no 
spirit  irradiates  the  mask  of  bones  and 
flesh,  so  there  are  prosperous  men  and 
women  whose  lot  awakens  the  envy  of 
their  fellows  whose  outward  success  is 
without  spiritual  dignity  or  meaning. 
Men  can  exist  without  the  words  that 
proceed  from  the  mouth  of  God,  but  they 
cannot  live  without  them.  They  build 
themselves  palaces  and  lay  the  skill  of 
the  world  under  contribution  to  make 
them  stately  without  and  luxurious  within, 
but  they  provide  no  upper  room.  They 
open  their  doors  wide  and  entertain  their 
friends  lavishly,  but  there  is  no  place  for 
God  under  the  roof.  There  are  magnifi 
cent  rooms  where  guests  are  welcomed 
with  royal  splendor,  there  are  great  gal 
leries  into  which  are  gathered  the  treas 
ures  of  many  ages  and  countries  but  there 
is  no  upper  room. 

The  activities  and  rewards  of  the  time 
are  so  engrossing  that  many  high-minded 
and  pure-hearted  people  find  no  time  for 
70 


The  Upper  Room 

meditation  and  communion  in  the  upper 
room.  Many  of  them  are  so  bent  on 
helping  their  fellows  that  they  forget 
whence  cometh  their  help;  they  are  so 
eager  to  share  the  sorrows  of  their  fel 
lows  that  they  forget  Him  who  bore  the 
cross  up  the  steep  way  to  Calvary;  they 
are  so  drained  by  the  duties  they  take  up 
that  they  lose  the  inspiration  which  makes 
duty  the  channel  through  which  love 
pours  itself  out;  they  listen  with  such 
passionate  attention  to  the  cries  for  help 
that  come  from  the  world  around  them 
that  they  no  longer  hear  the  still,  small 
voice  of  the  Father  of  all  men.  In  the 
house  of  the  generous  and  self-sacrificing, 
as  in  the  houses  of  the  selfish  and  hard 
hearted,  there  is  no  upper  room. 

And  yet  no  man  can  live  without  God ! 
It  is  true,  he  comes  in  a  thousand  forms 
and  speaks  many  languages;  but  it  is  also 
true  that  men  must  make  ready  the  room 
in  which  they  can  meet  him  face  to  face. 
Where  there  is  no  upper  room,  the 
house,  however  nobly  appointed  and  dedi- 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

cated,  may  remain  a  place  of  courage  and 
arduous  endeavor,  but  it  ceases  to  be  a 
place  of  contagious  hope,  of  that  vision 
which  enables  men  to  look  at  the  sorrows 
of  the  arid  lives  without  losing  heart  in 
the  infinite  love.  For  those  who  give 
themselves  to  works  of  mercy  and  stand 
ready  to  help  in  the  highways,  no  less 
than  for  those  who  feed  their  bodies  and 
starve  their  souls,  the  upper  room  is  not 
only  a  place  of  refuge,  it  is  a  necessity  of 
the  higher  nature;  and  the  more  exacting 
the  work  becomes,  and  the  greater  its 
interest  and  reward,  the  more  pressing  is 
the  need  of  the  upper  room  where  the 
tumult  of  the  world  dies  into  silence  and 
the  ambitions  of  the  world  shrink  into  the 
rewards  of  a  passing  hour,  and  man  talks 
with  his  God. 


72 


The  Price  of  Immortality 

SHAKESPEARE  gives  Polonius  a 
prominent  place  in  the  early  part  of 
"  Hamlet,"  and  then  allows  him  to  be  ig- 
nominiously  mistaken  for  a  rat  and  killed. 
This  end  was  due  to  Polonius;  but  Shake 
speare  must  have  found  great  satisfaction 
in  bringing  it  about.  For  Polonius  was 
essentially  a  coward  and  an  atheist.  He 
was  always  warning  people  to  beware  of 
life;  he  proposed  to  put  everybody  in  a 
chain  armor  of  selfish  caution.  The  sub 
stance  of  his  advice  to  his  son  and  to  all 
the  others  to  whom  he  talked  was :  "  Get 
money;  avoid  friends;  beware  of  life!  " 
George  Macdonald  said  that  Polonius 
would  have  been  right  if  the  devil  had 
been  God.  But  in  a  universe  in  which 
the  devil  is  the  devil  and  God  is  God  Po 
lonius  was  tragically  wrong.  His  atti 
tude  made  it  impossible  for  him  to  be 
lieve  anything,  and  he  was  therefore  in 
capable  of  understanding  anything. 
73 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

The  only  man  who  greatly  succeeds  is 
the  man  who  believes.  The  unbelieving 
man  tries  to  conduct  the  business  of  life 
alone;  he  refuses  to  enter  into  partner 
ship  with  the  great  force  behind  life.  He 
suspects  that  force,  fears  it,  and  tries  to 
protect  himself  from  it.  He  makes, 
therefore,  the  smallest  possible  invest 
ment  of  his  affections,  his  convictions,  his 
energy.  Instead  of  taking  possession  of 
the  great  House  of  Life  and  living  in  it 
like  an  heir  to  whom  it  has  come  by  hon 
orable  inheritance,  he  bolts  the  doors  and 
bars  the  windows,  locks  his  treasures  in 
the  innermost  room,  watches  for  thieves, 
and  dreads  earthquakes  and  tempests. 
He  never  takes  the  privileges  of  an  heir 
of  the  world  or  of  a  son  of  God.  No 
man  can  really  make  a  success  in  the  su 
preme  business  of  living  unless  he  goes 
into  partnership  with  the  force  behind 
life,  invests  everybody  that  he  is  and  has, 
and  commits  himself  gladly  and  boldly 
to  that  force  which  some  people  call 
righteousness  and  others  call  God. 
74 


The  Price  of  Immortality 

The  phrase  "  growing  up  with  a  com 
munity,"  which  is  often  heard  in  this 
country,  is  significant  of  one  great  element 
of  success.  Those  men  who  foresee  the 
growth  of  a  locality,  identify  themselves 
with  it,  and  make  investment  in  it  are 
lifted  often  on  a  rising  tide  of  prosperity 
to  great  wealth.  They  are  not  specula 
tors;  for  the  speculator  is  a  gambler. 
They  are  far-sighted  men,  with  the 
prophetic  instinct;  they  have  faith  enough 
to  commit  themselves  to  the  larger  for 
tunes  of  a  community;  and  so  they  found 
great  fortunes  on  insight,  observation, 
and  faith. 

Browning  w-as  the  prophet  of  those 
who  take  God  at  his  word;  who  believe 
that  the  invisible  forces  behind  life  are 
friendly  and  bear  one  forward.  Those 
who  yield  to  these  forces  are  carried  to 
great  prosperities  of  soul.  Men  and 
women  of  the  Polonius  type  of  mind 
never  make  great  ventures;  they  never 
put  their  talents  out  at  interest,  but  bury 
them  in  a  napkin.  In  the  great  House 
75 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

of  Life  they  lie  awake  at  night  because 
they  think  they  hear  burglars  or  smell 
smoke.  They  never  hoist  sail  and  put 
boldly  out  to  sea ;  they  keep  within  sight 
of  the  shore.  But  the  sea  captain  fears 
no  storm,  however  violent,  if  he  has 
plenty  of  sea  room;  the  wrecks  line  the 
shore.  Of  course  life  is  full  of  danger; 
and  many  things  may  happen  to  bring 
pain  and  sorrow  to  those  who  are  bold 
because  they  believe  profoundly  in  the 
power  behind  life.  But  the  man  who 
greatly  loses  is  a  nobler  man  than  he  who 
ignominiously  succeeds.  As  a  rule,  the 
bold  men  who  act  on  their  faith  make  the 
great  achievements;  but  even  when  they 
fail  to  command  eternal  success  they  gain 
nobility  of  soul.  "  He  makes  noble  ship 
wreck  who  is  lost  in  seeking  worlds." 

If  the  devil  were  God,  caution  would 
be  a  supreme  duty;  but  because  God  is 
God  the  supreme  duty  is  courage.  Op 
portunity  is  never  separated  from  danger, 
and  love  always  evokes  the  possibility  of 
sorrow;  but  he  would  be  a  dull  man  who 
76 


The  Price  of  Immortality 

would  avoid  adventure  because  peril  is 
bound  up  with  it;  and  he  would  miss  the 
whole  beauty  and  meaning  of  life  who 
would  never  permit  himself  to  make  a 
great  venture  of  his  affection  because 
death  may  go  with  love.  It  is  the  mor 
tal  part  that  fears,  it  is  the  immortal  part 
that  dares;  and  the  great  trials  are  the 
price  we  pay  for  our  immortality.  If, 
to-day,  Dante,  far  on  in  the  paradise  of 
which  he  dreamed  cares  for  the  fame 
which  shines  like  a  light  over  the  whole 
world,  he  does  not  count  those  weary 
years  of  exile  from  Florence  too  great  a 
price  to  have  paid.  Lincoln,  looking 
down  on  a  reunited  family  bound  to 
gether  for  the  first  time  in  a  household  of 
love,  does  not  feel  that  his  martyrdom 
was  too  great  a  price  to  have  paid  for 
such  a  result.  The  great  things  are  al 
ways  to  be  greatly  paid  for.  An  immor 
tal  spirit  cannot  be  put  into  a  mortal  body 
to  live  a  mortal  life  without  exposure 
to  the  changes,  sorrows,  and  shadows  of 
death  which  are  a  part  of  mortality.  But 
.77 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

the  brave  man  does  not  shrink  from  the 
toil  and  danger  to  which  his  very  great 
ness  calls  him  in  some  noble  task,  and  the 
immortal  spirit  ought  to  be  willing  to 
face,  to  pay  the  price  of,  its  own  immor 
tality. 

The  choice  between  following  the  mor 
tal  or  the  immortal  nature  is  laid  upon 
us  all.  Happy  are  those  who  dare  to  be 
lieve  in  God  and  to  act,  not  as  if  immor 
tality  were  coming  to  them,  but  as  if  it 
were  already  theirs. 


Light  in  the  Darkness 

MY  faith  holds,  but  I  cannot  see 
my  way,"  writes  a  man  who  is 
trying  to  live  in  the  spirit  of  Christ. 
The  experience  is  neither  uncommon  nor 
unhappy;  for  a  secure  anchorage  of  the 
soul  is  the  main  thing  in  life.  To  see 
one's  way  has  a  great  deal  to  do  with 
happiness,  but  nothing  to  do  with  safety; 
to  be  able  to  follow  the  path  step  by  step 
through  fog  and  storm  brings  one  to  the 
end  of  the  journey  as  certainly  as  to 
follow  it  in  the  sunshine.  Some  men  see 
farther  than  others,  but  no  man  sees  the 
whole  course  from  start  to  finish;  the 
greatness  of  the  way  makes  that  impos 
sible.  The  essential  thing  in  the  life  of 
faith  is  not  sight,  but  faith;  in  faith  lies 
the  discipline  of  the  spirit,  the  firm  and 
final  setting  of  the  will,  the  deep  spiritual 
education  that  is  born  of  patience,  of 
waiting  in  hope,  of  the  slow  strengthen 
ing  of  the  habit  of  trust. 
79 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

Clearness  of  vision,  the  constant  sense 
of  divine  guidance,  the  joy  of  cloudless 
faith,  are  the  possession  of  few  men  and 
women;  for  this  radiancy  of  belief  is  a 
kind  of  religious  genius,  and  genius  is  the 
possession  of  a  little  group  out  of  count 
less  millions.  They  are  many  who,  in 
lesser  degree,  walk  in  the  light;  some  be 
cause  they  are  buoyant  by  temperament, 
some  because  the  experiences  that  drive 
the  spirit  back  on  itself  pass  them  by;  a 
few  because  prosperity  shields  them  from 
the  knowledge  of  the  tragic  facts  of  life, 
from  the  shock  of  contact  with  the  misery 
of  the  world.  But  these  exceptionally 
comfortable  men  and  women  are  counted 
fortunate  only  by  those  who  do  not 
see  the  tremendous  significance  of  life. 
Prosperity  is  not  a  matter  of  easy  condi 
tions,  but  of  large  opportunity;  to  live  in 
a  palace,  shut  away  from  sorrow  and 
care,  is  one  of  the  supreme  misfortunes 
of  a  life  that  is  planned,  not  for  ease,  but 
for  education;  and  the  unluckiest  boy  in 
the  world  is  the  boy  who  is  allowed  to 
80 


Light  in  the  Darkness 

play  during  the  years  when  he  ought  to 
be  at  school. 

The  faith  that  holds  one  securely  when 
the  mists  cover  the  earth  or  the  storms 
sweep  over  it  is  a  matter,  not  of  tempera 
ment  or  fortunate  conditions,  but  of  deep 
and  enduring  conviction.  The  gates  of 
hell,  which  are  sometimes  opened  on  a 
man  and  let  loose  a  stormy  mob  of  temp 
tations  or  doubts,  cannot  prevail  against 
it;  and  he  who  possesses  it  is  impreg- 
nably  intrenched  against  their  attacks. 
He  is  never  caught  unawares  or  in  am 
bush;  for  his  strength  does  not  lie  in  his 
moods  or  his  clearness  of  vision;  it  lies 
in  himself.  If  he  is  plunged  in  the  thick 
darkness  of  that  depression  in  which  men 
of  weaker  faith  throw  down  their  arms 
in  despair,  he  stands  steadfast  and  im 
movable;  it  is  not  his  to  choose  the  light 
or  the  darkness;  his  duty  is  to  stand  res 
olutely  where  he  is  placed,  and  there  he 
holds  his  post  like  a  soldier.  If  doubts 
gather  thick  around  him  and  shut  all  the 
doors  of  hope,  he  waits,  hopeless  for 
81 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

the  moment,  but  incorruptibly  loyal  to 
his  Master.  It  was  in  this  temper  that 
Childe  Roland  passed  unfaltering  through 
the  horror  of  desolation,  the  slung  horn 
at  his  lips,  until  he  came  to  the  dark 
tower,  undaunted  by  visible  and  invisible 
terrors,  never  for  a  moment  in  danger 
of  any  power  outside  himself. 

It  is  in  such  darkness  that  the  soul 
grows  strong  and  faith  justifies  itself  by 
the  inward  strength  that  increases  un 
awares  in  the  man  and  makes  great  deeds 
easy;  and  great  deeds  in  turn  breed  great 
natures  and  open  the  paths  to  those  ulti 
mate  heights  whence  a  world  stretches  in 
unbroken  sunshine  and  the  heavens  are 
cloudless  from  horizon  to  horizon.  To 
a  few  men  the  pilgrimage  of  life  leads 
through  unbroken  light;  to  most  men  the 
light  is  intermittent  and  there  are  long 
leagues  of  journeying  through  bleak  and 
shadowy  countries ;  but  that  man  is  happy 
whose  course  takes  him  where  steadfast 
ness  waits  on  courage  and  light  comes 
not  as  a  gift,  but  as  an  achievement. 
82 


Light  in  the  Darkness 

There  is  a  peace  that  comes  to  him 
whose  fight  has  been  lonely  and  at  times 
without  hope  of  victory  that  gets  its  depth 
and  sweetness  from  the  fierceness  of  the 
struggle  through  which  it  is  won ;  there  is 
a  purity  that  is  the  cleansing  of  fire;  there 
is  a  final  certainty  that  is  victory  snatched 
from  a  thousand  doubts.  The  very 
throne  of  God  is  set  round  with  clouds 
and  darkness,  and  the  last  venture  of 
faith  across  the  river  of  death  is  not 
made  on  a  massive  highway  over  the 
flood,  but  on  stepping-stones  receding  in 
mist  as  faith  passes  calmly  into  the  dark 
ness  that  comes  before  the  day  breaks 
and  the  night  is  gone  forever. 


83 


Stirring  the  Will 

THE  familiar  prayer  in  the  Episco 
pal  Prayer-Book  for  the  Sunday 
before  Advent,  "  Stir  up,  we  beseech 
thee,  O  Lord,  the  wills  of  thy  faithful 
people;  that  they,  plenteously  bringing 
forth  the  fruit  of  good  works,  may  by 
thee  be  plenteously  rewarded;  through 
Jesus  Christ  our  Lord,  Amen,"  goes  to 
the  very  heart  of  the  religious  life;  for 
the  root  of  that  life  is  not  ia  the  emo 
tions,  nor  in  the  intellectual  convictions, 
but  in  the  will.  This  prayer,  recited  for 
many  generations,  has  given  its  name  to 
the  day  on  which  it  is  used,  and  "  Stir-up 
Sunday "  is  a  phrase  which  conveys  a 
challenge. 

Most  men,  when  they  feel  deeply,  give 
their  emotions  some  form  of  expression; 
but  expression  is  largely  a  matter  of  tem 
perament.  It  is  not  a  test  of  religious 
experience,  nor  is  it,  as  it  has  sometimes 
been  thought  to  be,  the  conclusive  evi- 
84 


Stirring  the  Will 

dence  of  a  changed  nature.  It  is  often 
the  accompaniment  of  the  change,  but  it 
is  not  the  change  itself.  For  this  reason 
the  dramatic  and  spectacular  repentance 
of  the  criminal  or  the  man  of  evil  life  is 
always  looked  upon  with  more  or  less 
suspicion.  There  is  a  sound  instinct  in 
the  demand  that  a  great  sinner  shall 
prove  the  reality  of  his  repentance  by  his 
full  and  sincere  recognition  of  the  enor 
mity  of  his  offense;  and  when  a  man  feels 
profoundly  rather  than  dramatically  the 
enormity  of  his  sin,  he  is  likely  to  flee 
from  the  public  gaze  and  to  seek  in  silence 
and  solitude  a  place  of  penitence.  The 
great  sinner  who  takes  the  newspapers 
into  his  confidence  when  he  makes  an 
"  about-face  "  is  often  sincere:  but  he  is 
rarely  a  man  of  deep  feeling  or  of  a 
clear-cut  conscience.  The  transition  from 
a  life  of  moral  anarchy  to  one  of  submis 
sion  to  the  Divine  Will  is  sometimes  dra 
matic  in  its  suddenness,  but  it  is  rarely 
used  as  dramatic  material  by  a  man  of 
deep  experience  and  sincerity. 
85 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

Many  people  are  troubled  because  the 
life  of  faith  does  not  lie  before  their  feet 
defined  by  sunshine;  others  doubt  the 
reality  of  their  surrender  to  the  Divine 
Will  because  their  emotions  are  not 
touched  and  life  does  not  become  in 
stantly  "  one  grand  sweet  song."  This 
means  generally  that  emotion  is  not  the 
natural  expression  of  their  temperament. 
Religion  is  not  a  reality  in  a  man's  life 
until  it  takes  hold  of  his  will;  and  a  man 
becomes  a  Christian,  not  when  he  says, 
"  I  feel  "  or  "  I  believe,"  but  when  he 
says  "  I  will."  For  it  is  only  as  a  man 
wills  to  make  his  belief  a  part  of  his  life 
that  he  passes  out  of  the  region  of  in 
tellectual  assent  into  the  region  of  vital 
religion. 

He  who  is  doing  the  will  of  God  per 
sistently  in  the  face  of  uncertainty  and, 
for  long  periods,  without  joy,  is  the  kind 
of  Christian  of  which  this  world  stands 
in  sore  need.  He  will  never  betray  his 
trust,  nor  faint  by  the  way,  nor  lose  him 
self  in  the  mists  and  fogs  of  changing 
86 


Stirring  the  Will 

opinion.  He  has  the  virtue  of  a  soldier 
—  he  obeys  orders.  It  is  never  a  ques 
tion  with  him  whether  orders  are  agree 
able  or  not;  whether  he  is  getting  the 
recognition  he  deserves;  whether  he  is 
passed  over  and  other  men  are  promoted. 
It  is  only  a  question  of  his  understand 
ing  his  orders  and  obeying  them. 

In  these  agitated  and  critical  times 
Christians  may  well  pray  for  the  descent 
of  the  Spirit  on  all  the  churches,  and  for 
the  coming  of  one  of  those  great  waves 
of  devout  feeling  which  sometimes  pass 
through  society.  But  the  emphasis  of  its 
prayer  ought  to  be  on  the  words,  "  Stir 
up,  we  beseech  thee,  O  Lord,  the  wills  of 
thy  faithful  people." 


Life,  Growth,  and  Heaven 

WHEN  people  thought  of  the  life 
of  man  as  the  expression  of  a  di 
vine  purpose  mysteriously  frustrated,  and 
of  the  earth  as  a  great  ship  which  had 
drifted  onto  the  rocks  and  from  which  a 
few  fortunate  souls  were  saved  by  super 
natural  lifeboats,  Heaven  was  a  harbor 
for  those  who  survived  the  great  dis 
aster.  The  supreme  effort  was  to  save 
one's  self  in  a  lost  world;  and  to  land  in 
safety  was  to  be  in  a  state  of  bliss  —  a 
fixed  condition  of  perpetual  thanksgiving 
for  rescue. 

There  were  always  those  to  whom  a 
vision  of  the  divine  nature  brought  a  di 
vine  thought  of  Heaven,  and  for  whom, 
behind  the  most  literal  and  rigid  concep 
tion,  there  was  a  glory  like  a  golden 
sunset  behind  a  sharply  defined  land 
scape.  In  the  ordered  world  of  Dante, 
the  static  world  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
Heaven  was  a  place  of  ineffable  beauty 
88 


Life,  Growth,  and  Heaven 

bathed  in  the  white  light  of  perfect  holi 
ness.  But  it  was  still  primarily  a  place 
of  safety;  the  very  whiteness  testified  to 
the  blackness  of  the  world.  That  world 
had  been  succeeded  by  a  Heaven  in  which 
those  who  had  escaped  the  great  con 
demnation  chanted  their  gratitude  in  un 
ending  songs  of  praise.  Heaven  was  a 
static  state  of  bliss. 

The  Middle  Ages  differed  funda 
mentally  from  the  modern  age  in  the  om 
nipresence  of  the  thought  of  death  and 
the  absence  of  the  idea  of  progress. 
The  mediaeval  imagination  was  obsessed 
with  the  thought  of  death;  it  haunted  the 
happiest  hours;  its  shadow  fell  on  the 
noblest  companionship;  it  lay  in  wait  at 
every  turn  of  the  road;  art  made  it  ter 
rible  by  a  ghastly  realism;  Everyman 
was  always  moving,  reluctant  and  shrink 
ing,  to  his  open  grave ;  the  symbols  on  the 
tombs  were  the  symbols  of  mortality;  the 
image  of  the  crucified  Christ  faced  one  on 
all  sides,  the  risen  Christ  was  seen  only 
over  a  few  great  altars. 
89 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

And  the  mediaeval  world  was  sta 
tionary;  men  stood  in  fixed  ranks  and 
expected  to  remain  in  the  state  in  which 
they  were  born.  Society  was  arranged, 
so  to  speak,  in  tiers,  like  the  audience  in 
a  great  opera-house.  Rank  rose  above 
rank,  and  the  doors  between  the  ranks 
were  closed.  Now  and  again  a  great 
man  broke  through  the  barriers  and  made 
his  way  from  the  lower  to  the  higher 
places;  but,  outside  the  priesthood,  the 
fixed  order  seemed  to  mark  the  perma 
nent  structure  of  society.  Of  the  for 
ward  movement  of  humanity,  of  a  divine 
intention  enfolding  all  things  and  bearing 
them  onward,  of  an  "  increasing  pur 
pose  "  running  through  the  ages  and 
making  history  significant,  there  was  no 
thought  save  in  a  few  prophetic  minds. 

To-day  the  thoughts  of  men  are  dom 
inated  by  life,  and  death  has  become  an 
incident  in  the  unbroken  life  of  the  spirit; 
an  incident  enveloped  in  mystery,  but  still 
an  incident,  not  a  final,  decisive  event. 
We  accept  no  obstacles  to  life  as  in- 
90 


Life,  Growth,  and  Heaven 

surmountable;  the  insane  are  no  longer 
given  over  to  hopeless  madness ;  the  lepers 
are  not  driven  away  with  stones  and 
curses  and  compelled  to  proclaim  them 
selves  unclean;  punishment  for  crime  is 
no  longer  torture  —  it  is  corrective,  like 
the  surgeon's  knife;  blindness  is  no  longer 
a  state  of  helplessness  —  the  blind  are 
taught  to  see  with  their  minds;  defective 
children  are  educated;  and  society,  ac 
cepting  no  defect  or  degradation  as  final, 
is  becoming  a  great  organization  for  over 
coming  disease  with  health  and  death 
with  life.  The  memorials  of  those 
whom  we  call  dead  are  no  longer  the 
skull  and  crossbones,  the  hour-glass  and 
the  skeleton;  they  recall  great  moments 
thrilling  with  life  —  Farragut  with  his 
field-glass  in  his  hand,  Sherman  riding  to 
victory,  Lincoln  erect  and  commanding 
in  the  majesty  of  his  noble  simplicity. 
Even  the  mysterious  figure  in  the  Wash 
ington  cemetery,  from  the  hand  of  the 
most  distinguished  of  American  sculp 
tors,  is  charged  with  vitality  as  it  stands, 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

baffled  for  the  moment,  but  with  unspent 
power.  The  figure  which  dominates  the 
religious  imagination  of  the  world  is  not 
the  dying  but  the  living  Christ,  who 
brought  life  and  immortality  to  light,  and 
who  came  that  men  might  have  life  more 
abundantly. 

And  to  a  static  has  succeeded  a  dyna 
mic  world;  a  world  that  was  not  made 
but  has  grown  and  still  grows  like  the 
living  thing  it  is;  not  a  noble  piece  of 
mechanism  finished  by  the  hand  of  God 
and  sent  whirling  into  space  to  move  by 
an  impulse  imparted  once  for  all  in  the 
pre-beginning  of  things,  but  the  thought 
and  purpose  of  the  Infinite  taking  form 
and  motion,  sustained  moment  by  mo 
ment  by  the  power  of  God,  the  witness  of 
his  constant  presence,  the  imitation  of  his 
thought,  growing  hour  by  hour  under  his 
hand.  And  society  is  no  longer  station 
ary,  but  becomes  more  and  more  a  living 
and  growing  organism,  enlarging  its 
vision  of  opportunity,  opening  its  doors, 
adapting  its  institutions  to  the  needs  of 
92 


Life,  Growth,  and  Heaven 

its  deepening  and  widening  life.  For 
that  which  is  divine  and  immortal  in  the 
world  is  not  social  and  political  institu 
tions,  but  the  human  spirit;  and  that 
which  is  permanent  and  fundamental  is 
not  the  order  of  society,  but  the  will  and 
purpose  and  power  of  God  behind  the 
confusion  of  change  and  the  restlessness 
of  movement.  "  In  Him  we  live  and 
move  and  have  our  being." 

More  and  more  the  thoughts  of  men 
turn  to  the  future  of  the  race;  more  and 
more  they  realize  that  they  have  only  a 
life  interest  in  the  treasures  of  civiliza 
tion  which  God  has  placed  in  their  hands, 
and  that  these  things  must  be  used  not 
selfishly,  but  passed  on  to  those  who  are 
to  come  after  them;  more  and  more  they 
realize  their  duty  to  children;  more  and 
more  they  see  that  the  earth  ought  not 
to  be  primarily  a  workshop  and  incident 
ally  a  home,  but  primarily  a  home  and 
incidentally  a  workshop.  They  believe 
in  the  upward  movement  of  the  race,  and 
they  stand  ready  to  help  it.  The  mod- 
93 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

ern  mind  is  dominated  by  the  thought  of 
Life;  and  the  inspiration  of  the  modern 
world  is  its  faith  in  Progress,  which  is 
the  social  application  and  expression  of 
the  thought  of  Life. 

The  life  of  the  world  is  still  full  of 
pain  and  strife;  and  Heaven  is  a  refuge 
in  the  thought  of  those  upon  whom  crush 
ing  burdens  have  been  laid  and  to  whom 
the  breath  of  life  has  meant  sorrow  and 
anguish.  Heaven  must  always  be  a 
refuge;  but  it  must  be  infinitely  more. 
Eternity  is  too  long  for  rest  after  the 
struggle  of  earthly  life;  and  the  fatigue 
of  the  body  is  not  the  fatigue  of  the  spirit. 
The  sorrows  of  childhood  overspread  the 
whole  sky  and  blot  out  the  sun;  but  they 
are  forgotten  the  next  day.  It  may  be 
that  the  first  breath  in  the  next  stage  of 
life  will  make  disease  and  sorrow  a  faint 
memory. 

Nor  will  the  chief  thought  of  the  state 

of  being  we  call  Heaven  be  a  sense  of 

rescue  from  a  great  peril;  it  will  be  a 

sense  of  joy  in  a  glorious  vision  of  the 

94 


Life,  Growth,  and  Heaven 

possibilities  of  the  fuller  life.  Of  those 
possibilities  no  man  has  yet  dreamed; 
though  sometimes  there  come  moments 
of  rapture  when,  for  a  second  of  time, 
one  feels  the  capacity  of  immortal  joys 
within  him.  As  earth  was  a  place  of 
stationary  orders,  so  was  Heaven,  in  the 
thoughts  of  many  noble  souls  in  the  Mid 
dle  Ages,  a  place  of  stationary  bliss, 
where  choirs  ceaselessly  thank  God  for 
deliverance. 

But  there  is,  here  on  earth,  a  nobler 
expression  of  thanksgiving  than  the  giv 
ing  of  thanks.  Far  sweeter  to  a  noble 
father  is  his  son's  noble  use  of  the  op 
portunities  put  in  his  way  than  any  words 
of  gratitude;  far  sweeter  that  son's 
growth  in  mind  and  character,  in  useful 
ness  and  influence,  than  any  expression 
of  thanks.  Love  finds  its  supreme  re 
ward  in  the  fulfillment  of  its  highest  hopes 
for  child  or  friend. 

Heaven  must  always  be  a  place  of 
refuge;  but  that  will  be  only  the  begin 
ning  of  the  happiness  it  offers,  only  the 
95 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

look  backward  at  the  starting-point  of  a 
glorious  liberation  of  the  spirit.  And 
Heaven  must  always  be  a  place  of  grati 
tude;  but  the  sweetest  praise  of  the  In 
finite  must  be  the  fulfillment  in  His  chil 
dren  of  the  divine  possibilities  He  has 
wrought  into  their  natures. 

Life  and  growth,  the  divine  elements 
in  the  life  of  man  on  this  earth,  must  be 
the  elements  of  man's  life  in  all  worlds, 
and  the  supreme  bliss  which  we  call 
Heaven  must  be  not  only  escape  from  the 
limitations  of  earth  and  from  the  evil 
in  the  world,  but  complete  liberation  of 
the  spirit,  strength  of  heart  for  all  serv 
ice,  vigor  of  mind  for  all  truth,  purity  of 
nature  for  the  vision  of  God.  Heaven 
is  not  the  backward  but  the  forward  look, 
not  skirting  the  shore  in  gladness  that  the 
perils  of  the  voyage  are  over,  but  spread 
ing  the  sail  with  confident  gladness  and 
seeking  port  after  port  in  the  sublime  ad 
venture  of  the  spirit  seeking  God.  In 
that  adventure  Heaven  will  become  an 
ineffable  joy  in  the  fulfillment  of  the  po- 
96 


Life,  Growth,  and  Heaven 

tencies  of  life;  not  in  rest,  but  in  flight 
without  fatigue;  not  in  folding  of  the 
arms,  but  in  tireless  growth,  will  be  the 
bliss  which  we  call  Heaven. 


97 


The  Ultimate  Companionship 

BORN  in  the  kindling  of  the  im 
agination  and  sinking  its  roots 
deep  in  those  instincts  which  are  the  rec 
ords  of  the  primitive  nature  and  earliest 
education  of  men  in  this  world,  love  rises 
steadily  through  desire,  passion,  posses 
sion,  to  a  companionship  so  intimate  and 
so  complete  that  it  includes  and  draws 
nourishment  from  every  interest  and  oc 
cupation.  This  perfect  companionship  is 
not  always  realized  even  by  those  who 
love  greatly  and  wisely;  for  it  is  the  latest 
of  the  many  stages  through  which  this 
master  passion  passes,  the  ultimate 
phase  in  this  supreme  experience.  For 
love  has  its  appointed  ways  and  degrees 
of  growth,  and  the  most  tender  and  de 
voted  hand  cannot  pluck  at  will  those 
ripe  fruits  which  attain  perfection  only 
on  the  westward  reaches  of  life,  when 
the  afternoon  sun  lies  warmest  and  lin- 
98 


The  Ultimate  Companionship 

gers  longest.  After  the  passion  of  youth 
and  the  deep-moving  tides  of  maturity 
there  comes,  in  the  fulfillment  of  the 
promise  of  love,  a  wide,  rich,  reposeful 
harmony  born  in  the  long  years  of  ad 
justment,  of  mutual  knowledge,  of  fellow 
ship  in  the  ways  and  works  of  the  days 
as  they  come  with  their  gifts  and  depart 
with  hands  emptied  by  those  who  have 
recognized  the  princely  possessions  borne 
in  humblest  guise.  As  in  the  later 
autumn  there  falls  on  the  world  of  toil 
and  strife  a  peace  so  deep  that  it  seems 
to  sink  to  the  roots  of  things  in  the 
earth,  and  so  wide  that  all  worlds  seem 
to  be  folded  in  it  —  the  sudden  emer 
gence  of  the  poetry  or  soul  of  the  fields 
out  of  the  secret  places  where  life  is 
nourished;  so  after  the  vicissitudes  and 
tumults  of  the  years  of  action  there 
comes  a  deep  and  tranquil  happiness  in 
which  all  things  partake,  and  in  partak 
ing  catch  the  light  of  the  spirit  which 
hides  within  all  material  forms  and 
shapes. 

99 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

This  complete  surrender  of  personal 
ity  to  personality,  in  which  the  self- 
fulfillment  of  the  Western  idealist  is  ac 
complished  by  the  self-effacement  which 
the  Eastern  idealist  pursues  as  the  end 
of  the  earthly  life,  is  not  secured  between 
strong  natures  without  the  breaking  of 
bars  and  the  forcing  of  locks.  It  is  a 
natural  instinct,  when  one  is  stricken,  to 
seek  silence  and  solitude;  and  the  finest 
and  best  are  those  whose  desperate  de 
sire,  when  wounds  are  deep,  is  not  only 
to  escape  from  the  sight  and  sound  of 
the  world,  but  to  take  refuge  from  those 
who  are  nearest  and  dearest.  In  the 
closest  of  all  relations  this  instinct  some 
times  asserts  itself  most  powerfully. 
The  garrulous;  the  seekers  after  sym 
pathy  —  of  whom  there  are  many  — 
those  who  cry  out  when  they  are  struck, 
not  only  find  it  easy  to  confide,  but  to 
get  nourishment  for  egotism  by  the  very 
recital  of  their  sorrows.  But  those 
whose  suffering  cuts  deeper,  who  have 
that  higher  reverence  for  themselves 
100 


The  Ultimate  Companionship 

which  breeds  reticence,  whose  habit  it  is 
to  bear  for  others  instead  of  asking  others 
to  bear  for  them,  who  are  so  repelled 
by  the  corruption  of  self-pity  that  they 
would  rather  endure  torture  than  be  cor 
rupted  by  it,  are  driven  back  upon  them 
selves,  and  by  the  very  measure  of  their 
love  are  held  back  from  speech.  When 
Brutus  was  bringing  his  pure  if  some 
what  narrow  spirit  to  the  point  of  con 
spiring  against 

.  .  .  one 

That  unassailable  holds  on  his  rank, 

Unshaked  of  motion, 

he  kept  his  own  counsel,  and  held  apart 
from  the  noble  woman  who  was  Cato's 
daughter,  and  whom  "  Lord  Brutus  took 
to  wife."  It  was  the  supreme  night  of 
his  life,  in  the  long  hours  of  which  his 
fate  was  as  surely  accomplished  as  it 
was  later  unfolded  to  the  sight  of  men 
at  Philippi;  terrors  and  prodigies  of  sight 
and  sound  in  the  streets  of  Rome  por 
tended  doom;  but  Brutus,  in  the  awful 
hour  of  fate,  was  alone  in  his  orchard. 
101 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

The  note  of  indignant  remonstrance 
which  vibrates  in  Portia's  passionate 
assertion  of  her  right  to  share  the  last 
secret  of  his  fate,  to  drink  with  him  the 
final  cup  of  experience,  rings  true  to  the 
highest  ideal  of  love  that  had  passed  on 
to  perfect  companionship : 

Am  I  yourself 

But  as  it  were,  in  sort  or  limitation, 
To  keep  with  you  at  meals,  comfort  your  bed, 
And  talk  to  you  sometimes?     Dwell  I  but  in 

the  suburbs 

Of  your  good  pleasure?     If  it  be  no  more, 
Portia  is  Brutus'  harlot,  not  his  wife. 

There  is  but  one  reply  to  words  of  such 
self-revealing  authority  as  these,  and 
Brutus,  who  is  compact  of  all  nobility, 
flashes  back  the  answer : 

O  ye  gods, 
Render  me  worthy  of  this  noble  wife! 

...  by  and  by  thy  bosom  shall  partake 
The  secrets  of  my  heart. 

All  my  engagements  I  will  construe  to  thee, 
All  the  charactery  of  my  sad  brows. 

It  is  the  office  of  love  not  to  spare  but 
1 02 


The  Ultimate  Companionship 

to  share;  to  divide  not  only  the  utter 
most  joy  but  the  ultimate  sorrow;  to 
stand  bound  by  the  divinest  of  ties,  not 
only  when  bells  are  rung  and  the  sweet 
ness  of  flowers  is  in  the  air,  but  when 
the  Great  Intruder  has  passed  the  door 
and  stands  in  the  room,  and  mortality 
waits  helpless  and  dumb  on  the  majestic 
presence  which  comes  to  all,  and  comes 
by  higher  compulsion  than  human  invita 
tion.  It  is  the  supreme  privilege  of 
love  to  share  not  only  life  but  death;  to 
stand  unshattered  when  the  foundations 
are  broken  up. 

And  this  perfect  companionship,  of 
which  Browning  grasps  the  final  glorious 
vision  in  the  imagery  of  "  Prospice," 

And   the  elements'   rage,   the   fiend-voices   that 
rave, 

Shall  dwindle,  shall  blend, 
Shall  change,  shall  become  first  a  peace  out  of 
pain, 

Then  a  light,  then  thy  breast, 
O  thou  soul  of  my  soul!  I  shall  clasp  thee  again, 
And  with  God  be  the  rest! 


103 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

is  not  gained  in  a  day;  it  is  the  rich 
and  indestructible  result  of  a  lifelong 
habit  of  keeping  the  heart  bare  and  the 
soul  open  and  the  conscience  in  one 
another's  view.  They  alone  climb  the 
last  heights  of  happiness  who  share  the 
perils  and  toils  of  the  way  as  completely 
as  they  share  its  inspirations,  its  ex 
hilarations,  its  joy  of  arching  sky  and 
expanding  earth.  For  love  is  not  only 
tender  and  delicate  and  to  be  cherished 
with  infinite  care;  it  is  also  hardy,  vigor 
ous,  fashioned  for  all  tasks,  capable  of 
all  resistance;  the  only  immortal  posses 
sion  in  a  world  which  is  but  a  symbol  of 
mutability  and  perishableness.  And  in 
its  perfection  it  belongs  to  those  only 
who  keep  nothing  back,  but  give  their 
treasures  of  weakness  as  well  as  of 
strength,  their  wealth  of  care  and  anxiety 
as  well  as  of  peace  and  joy. 


104 


The  Prophecy  of  Love 

THE  beginnings  of  life  are  always 
hidden  in  mystery;  for  there  is 
something  divine  in  all  births.  At  the 
starting-point  of  life,  as  at  its  finish,  there 
are  clouds  and  darkness.  Out  of  the 
mystery  of  infinity  and  eternity  we  come, 
and  into  the  mystery  of  infinity  and 
eternity  we  go,  and  there  is  neither  be 
ginning  nor  end  within  the  range  of  our 
vision.  When  the  light  first  rests  on  us, 
we  are  already  shaped  and  fashioned;  the 
mystery  of  birth  has  been  accomplished; 
the  mystery  of  growth  remains. 

When  the  slender  blade  breaks  the 
soil  and  lifts  its  fragile  stem  to  the  sun, 
the  protecting  darkness,  which  enfolded 
its  escape  from  the  hardness  of  the  seed 
and  the  faint  stirring  of  its  first  instinc 
tive  endeavor  toward  the  light,  has  van 
ished.  For  a  little  time  it  lives  and 
thrives  and  ripens  in  the  open,  with  the 
105 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

free  heavens  above  it  and  the  searching 
winds  cherishing  its  sweetness  or  beating 
its  fiber  into  strength  and  comeliness ;  and 
then,  yielding  up  its  life  in  the  multiply 
ing  of  lives  like  its  own,  it  sinks  back  into 
the  darkness  and  the  earth  receives  it 
again  into  the  mystery  from  which  it 
emerged.  And  so  the  tide  of  beauty  and 
fertility  perpetually  ebbs  and  flows  from 
the  unseen  to  the  unseen,  and  the  miracle 
of  life  hastening  to  death  and  death  sow 
ing  the  seeds  of  life  is  wrought  under  the 
chill  of  the  wintry  stars  and  the  soft 
splendor  of  the  summer  skies. 

We,  too,  have  our  roots  hidden  in  the 
soil  of  life;  for  us,  as  for  the  flower, 
there  is  the  warm  nourishing  of  the  sun 
and  the  stern  wrestling  with  the  wind, 
and  then  comes  the  silence  and  the 
mystery.  Like  the  bird  in  the  legend, 
we  suddenly  emerge  from  the  night  into 
the  hall  where  there  is  the  blaze  of  fire 
and  the  glow  of  lights,  and  then  we  van 
ish  again  into  the  refuge  of  darkness,  and 
nothing  remains  save  a  brief  memory  of 
1 06 


The  Prophecy  of  Love 

delicate  or  vigorous  wings  and  a  song 
that  throbbed  for  an  hour  and  died  into 
silence.  Out  of  mystery,  across  a  little 
space  of  brightness,  into  mystery:  that 
is  the  story  of  earthly  life.  It  is  a  leaf 
in  a  book  which  we  read  by  the  glow  of 
a  brief  candle;  a  story  of  which  a  single 
chapter  is  legible;  a  journey  of  which  but 
one  stage  is  accomplished  in  our  sight; 
a  drama  without  a  prologue,  and  the 
epilogue  of  which  is  spoken  on  a  vaster 
stage. 

As  the  beauty  of  the  tree,  in  the 
strength  of  its  symmetry  and  the  knit 
ting  together  of  its  structure,  in  the 
reach  and  delicacy  of  its  foliage,  in  the 
sweetness  of  its  brief  flowering  and  the 
richness  of  its  fruitage,  has  its  source 
and  fountain  in  the  hidden  beginnings 
of  its  life  and  is  but  the  unfolding  of 
that  which  lay  unrevealed  in  the  secret 
place  of  its  birth,  so  the  strong  and  ten 
der  and  powerful  forces  of  our  nature, 
the  capacities  for  devotion,  sacrifice, 
heroism,  the  passion  for  purity  and 
107 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

peace,  the  divine  energy  of  growth,  which 
give  the  brief  record  of  life  here  its  un 
speakable  pathos  and  splendor,  have  their 
roots  far  back  in  the  divine  world  out  of 
which  we  come  and  to  which  we  go. 

No  searching,  however  ardent  and 
tireless,  has  laid  bare  the  sources  of  life; 
no  accuracy  or  delicacy  of  instrument  has 
done  more  than  carry  the  light  a  little 
further  back  and  uncover  a  little  more 
of  the  mystery  that  becomes  ever  more 
mysterious.  If  by  searching  God  can 
not  be  found,  neither  by  searching  can 
the  birth  of  the  soul  be  uncovered.  Be 
cause  we  are  His  children,  born  of  His 
will,  bearing  His  image,  partakers  of  His 
thought,  educated  in  His  school  to  enter 
into  His  life,  no  hand  will  ever  be  laid 
on  the  place  where  we  were  born,  and 
the  sacredness  of  our  souls  will  be  pro 
tected  forever  by  an  impenetrable  mys 
tery  of  light;  for  there  is  a  privacy  of 
light  as  well  as  of  darkness,  and  the  glory 
of  the  Lord  is  as  baffling  to  the  irreverent 
tyes  that  search  without  love  as  in  the 
1 08 


The  Prophecy  of  Love 

clouds  and  darkness  which  surround  His 
throne. 

When  we  come  into  the  light,  a  thou 
sand  prophecies  come  with  us,  witnesses 
of  our  royal  birth  and  forerunners  of 
our  royal  fortunes.  There,  at  the  first 
dawning  of  our  mortality,  Love  suffers 
and  waits.  Before  we  came  Love  was; 
we  heard  its  call,  though  we  have  no 
memory  of  the  hour  and  the  place  where 
it  found  us.  But  the  call  of  human  love 
was  but  a  faint,  far  cry  compared  with 
the  summoning  of  the  love  of  the  Infi 
nite,  whose  thoughts  we  are,  whose  uni 
verse  is  our  home,  whose  fathomless 
passion  for  our  likeness  to  Himself  willed 
our  being  and  prepared  the  way  for  us 
by  planting  the  passion  of  love  in  human 
souls,  as  the  consummation  of  experience 
and  the  fulfillment  of  life,  and  the  per 
petual  witness  of  His  heart  toward  men. 
Against  the  background  of  the  mystery 
of  His  being  the  worlds  are  but  things 
of  yesterday,  and  Love  is  as  old  as  He; 
for  He  is  Love.  Before  all  worlds  this 
109 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

divine  energy  of  the  soul,  forever  seeking 
its  highest  good  in  the  good  of  its  mate, 
its  supremest  joy  in  the  happiness  of  its 
fellow,  its  perfect  growth  in  the  growth 
of  its  kin,  the  fulfillment  of  itself  in  the 
completeness  of  another,  had  its  birth; 
and,  when  the  worlds  have  been  resolved 
back  into  the  elements  of  which  they  were 
formed,  it  will  still  be  seeking  its  perfect 
expression  in  devotion  and  service  and 
immortal  companionship.  Disguised  un 
der  all  manner  of  obscure  garbs,  rejected 
and  cast  out  in  hours  of  blindness,  com 
pelled  to  bear  company  with  all  unclean- 
ness,  touched  but  never  stained  by  all 
defilement,  Love  walks  the  earth  in  the 
image  of  God  and  bearing  perpetual  wit 
ness  to  His  unseen  presence.  As  all  life 
comes  into  visible  being  at  its  call,  so  all 
life  culminates  and  is  fulfilled  in  its  un 
folding.  All  life  predicts  its  coming  and 
all  life  is  the  witness  of  its  presence. 


no 


The  Great  Refusal 

THE  great  refusal  is  the  refusal  to 
accept  the  gift  of  life,  which  is  the 
supreme  gift  of  God  to  man.  Without 
that  gift  all  other  gifts  would  have  been 
impossible  either  of  bestowal  or  of  ac 
ceptance.  Men  and  women  come  into 
life  without  their  own  volition,  but  they 
are  not  compelled  to  accept  the  gift  of 
life;  many  do  not  accept  it;  instead  of 
taking  it  with  gratitude  and  using  it  with 
the  courage  of  insight  into  its  splendid 
possibilities,  they  strive  to  protect  them 
selves  from  it  as  if  it  were  a  menace  to 
their  ease,  a  danger  to  their  comfort.  It 
is  and  ought  to  be  both,  for  ease  and  com 
fort  are  perilous  and  despicable  if  one 
seeks  them.  There  are  many  things  of 
real  value  if  they  come  to  a  man  as  the 
by-products  of  living,  but  enervating  and 
corrupting  if  pursued  as  ends  in  them 
selves.  Popularity  is  an  excellent  and 
in 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

useful  possession  if  one  does  not  seek  it 
and  is  not  afraid  of  it  when  it  has  been 
secured.  Social  influence  and  position  are 
valuable  if  they  come  without  seeking, 
but  the  woman  who  works  for  them  de 
grades  her  soul;  there  is  no  meanness  of 
snobbery  to  which  the  social  "  climber  " 
will  not  descend,  no  personal  indignity 
to  which  she  will  not  submit,  on  the  igno 
ble  path  which  she  has  chosen.  Even 
happiness,  if  put  before  honor,  duty,  or 
service,  betrays  the  soul. 

A  man  may  live  and  yet  refuse  the  gift 
of  life.  To  exist  is  not  to  live;  they  only 
live  who  take  life  with  all  its  experiences 
with  courage  and  joy,  who  not  only  put 
aside  the  fear  of  living  but  welcome  the 
opportunities  of  living  as  a  brave  man 
welcomes  a  perilous  chance  to  help  or 
inspire  or  lead  in  a  moment  of  danger. 
The  fear  of  living  is  the  source  of  that 
cowardice  which  empties  the  lives  of 
many  people  of  spiritual  meaning  and  hu 
man  dignity.  They  may  be  blameless  so 
far  as  external  morals  are  concerned,  and 
112 


The  Great  Refusal 

yet  they  are  guilty  of  refusing  the  su 
preme  gift  which  God  puts  into  their 
hands.  The  pure  in  heart  are  not  those 
who  have  never  known  temptation,  but 
those  who,  fiercely  tempted,  have  as 
fiercely  resisted;  or  who,  having  fallen, 
have  risen  again  and  through  purification 
made  themselves  clean.  The  heroes  are 
not  those  who  have  kept  away  from  dan 
ger,  but  have  faced  it,  suffered,  and  tri 
umphed. 

Among  the  miserable  throng  of  those 
who  are  bearing  the  pains  of  Purgatory 
there  are  none  of  whom  Dante  speaks 
with  such  scorn  as  "  those  inert  ones  who 
are  pleasing  neither  to  God  nor  to  his  ene 
mies."  These  wretched  ones  have  made 
the  great  refusal;  they  have  lived  with 
out  praise  or  blame;  their  offense  is  that 
they  have  been  neither  faithful  to  God 
nor  rebellious.  They  have  existed  for 
themselves  only.  When  opportunity  in 
terfered  with  ease,  they  chose  ease;  when 
duty  came  companioned  by  danger,  they 
bolted  the  door  and  kept  themselves  safe; 
"3 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

when,  in  the  night  and  storm,  the  cry  for 
help  rose  above  the  tumult,  they  re 
mained  comfortable  by  the  fire;  when  life 
offered  great  enterprises,  with  the  toil 
and  peril  which  make  success  a  matter  of 
character  as  well  as  of  opportunity,  they 
stayed  securely  at  home. 

The  fear  of  living  prompts  men  to  ac 
cept  narrow  positions  without  outlook  on 
the  future  for  the  sake  of  security  against 
the  vicissitudes  of  business;  to  accept  a 
small  fixed  income  because  it  provides  im 
mediate  comfort,  rather  than  take  those 
longer  chances  of  fortune  which  impose 
patience,  self-denial,  and  the  training  of 
experience  at  the  start.  Marriage  brings 
heavy  responsibilities;  it  interferes  with 
the  freedom  to  be  selfish  without  protest 
or  criticism;  it  means  many  surrenders  of 
small  comforts  which  are  dear  to  those 
whose  idea  of  life  is  to  keep  clear  of 
obligations ;  it  forces  a  man  to  think  some 
times  of  another  when  he  wishes  to  think 
all  the  time  and  only  of  himself. 

The  making  and  keeping  of  a  home 
114 


The  Great  Refusal 

necessitates  self-sacrifice,  work,  and  the 
expenditure  of  time  and  strength.  It  in 
terferes  with  that  opportunity  to  do  at 
any  moment  whatever  you  want  to  do 
which  many  unfortunate  people  call 
"  freedom  of  life,"  and  who  therefore 
avoid  the  complications  of  home-making 
and  home-keeping.  The  people  who 
make  this  great  refusal  do  not  know  what 
the  words  "  freedom  of  life  "  mean;  they 
put  ease  of  condition  in  place  of  some  of 
the  supreme  joys  of  living.  To  bring 
children  into  life  is  to  tie  one's  self  with 
many  bands  of  duty,  to  limit  one's  ability 
to  spend  money  freely  on  pleasure,  to 
limit  one's  freedom  in  the  matter  of  time 
and  place,  to  invoke  a  thousand  cares  and 
burdens;  the  coming  of  a  child  is  the 
most  insidious  form  of  teaching  unself 
ishness  which  the  Heavenly  Father  has 
yet  discovered.  To  refuse  the  gift  of 
children  is  to  close  the  door  in  the  face 
of  a  great,  enduring,  and  wonderful  hap 
piness.  It  is  to  avoid  the  noblest  chance 
of  education  which  life  offers.  And  yet 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

thousands  of  people  do  this  simply  to 
escape  being  "bothered;"  men  want  to 
keep  clear  of  all  relations  which  bring 
any  obligations  with  them  in  order  that 
they  may  be  free  to  be  perfectly  selfish; 
women  want  to  be  free  from  the  cares  of 
maternity  in  order  that  they  may  devote 
themselves  entirely  to  social  life  or  to 
what  they  call  a  "  career,"  as  if  the  ful 
fillment  of  the  oldest,  most  fundamental, 
and  divinest  of  all  human  functions  was 
not  the  richest,  most  influnential,  and 
happiest  career  open  to  men  and  women, 
the  only  really  creative  function  com 
mitted  to  them.  No  people  are  more  to 
be  pitied  than  the  young  men  and  women 
who  marry  as  a  further  step  in  selfish 
ness;  who  live  in  hotels  or  take  their 
meals  at  restaurants  in  order  to  escape 
the  responsibilities  of  having  a  home; 
who  profane  a  noble  relationship  and  de 
feat  one  of  the  great  ends  of  marriage 
by  agreeing  not  to  have  children  because 
children  are  "  such  a  bother." 

These  unfortunate  people  blight  their 
116 


The  Great  Refusal 

souls  at  the  very  start,  cut  all  the  deeper 
roots  of  life,  and  condemn  themselves  to 
a  thin,  narrow,  superficial  life,  in  order 
to  escape  the  very  things  they  were  sent 
into  life  to  achieve.  They  make  the 
great  refusal  before  they  know  what  they 
are  refusing;  they  shut  the  door  in  face  of 
happiness  in  the  vain  endeavor  to  make 
comfortable  for  their  bodies  a  world 
which  was  framed  to  liberate  and  inspire 
their  spirits.  They  fall  into  one  of  the 
most  insidious  forms  of  sensualism  and 
one  of  the  most  devitalizing  forms  of 
skepticism. 

Without  a  strain  of  heroism  life  is 
poor  and  mean.  Cowardice  is  fatal  to 
nobility.  Those  who  want  life  without 
paying  for  it  not  only  fail  to  get  it  but  do 
not  know  what  they  are  losing;  that  is 
the  penalty  of  cowardice.  By  work  life 
becomes  an  achievement,  by  surmounting 
obstacles  and  facing  dangers  men  and 
women  become  the  masters  of  them 
selves;  by  self-denial  and  glad  acceptance, 
by  greeting  the  "  Unseen  with  a  cheer," 
117 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

they  make  the  great  acceptance  and  be 
come  worthy  of  God's  great  gift  to  his 
children. 

In  the  hour  of  sorest  trial,  poor,  lonely, 
ill,  Beethoven  faced  life  with  unflinching 
courage,  and  life  poured  into  him  the 
wealth  of  knowledge  and  feeling  which 
enriched  all  time  in  the  "  Ninth  Sym 
phony."  "  From  the  brink  of  the  grave," 
said  a  noble  Frenchman  recovering  from 
a  perilous  illness,  "  I  measured  not  the 
vanity  of  life,  but  its  importance." 


118 


Discredited  Witnesses 

SITTING  before  an  open  fire  in  a  pri- 
•  vate  library  not  long  ago,  a  man  of 
distinction,  whose  artistic  skill  is  matched 
by  a  conscience  as  sensitive  and  exacting, 
told  the  story  of  his  escape  from  hard  and 
narrow  conditions,  his  education  by  a  se 
ries  of  apparently  casual  contacts  with 
trained  artists,  his  final  success  and  per 
sonal  happiness  coming  like  a  sudden 
burst  of  sunlight  through  dense  clouds; 
adding,  half  to  himself,  "  What  a  fairy 
story!"  It  was  more  wonderful  than 
any  fairy  tale,  for  it  was  a  chapter  out  of 
the  great  adventure  of  life.  From  the 
earliest  times  men  have  been  trying  to 
dramatize  this  adventure  in  all  manner 
of  legends,  myths,  dramas,  and  stories. 
However  hard  their  conditions,  some 
thing  within  them  has  always  borne  wit 
ness  to  a  great  destiny;  and  in  their  worst 
estate  of  degradation  and  misery  there 
119 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

has  been  a  mystery  about  them,  as  of 
heirs  of  a  kingdom  become  for  the  mo 
ment  tenders  of  swine. 

It  is  true,  there  have  always  been 
those  who  insisted  that  the  herding  of 
swine,  the  heartbreaking  toil  in  the  field, 
the  wretchedness  and  hunger,  are  the 
whole  of  life,  and  that  the  dreams  of 
happiness  which  make  the  night  tolerable 
are  mere  fancies  of  visionary  minds. 
"  Away  with  such  anodynes ! "  they 
have  said;  "let  us  be  men  and  face  the 
facts."  And  in  every  time  there  have 
been  those  who  succumbed  to  the  blight 
of  this  teaching  and  have  eaten  their 
hearts  out  in  bitterness  of  despair,  or 
wasted  their  fortunes  in  a  vain  attempt  to 
make  a  sleeping  potion  of  pleasure  and 
drown  their  misery  in  unconsciousness. 

But  there  have  been  those  also  who 
have  rejected  this  teaching  because  it  was 
not  the  doctrine  of  men  and  because  it 
did  not  face  the  facts,  and  have  commit 
ted  their  hearts  to  the  keeping  of  their 
highest  visions;  not  because  their  visions 
140 


Discredited  Witnesses 

were  beautiful  or  comforting,  but  be 
cause  they  made  life  explicable  by  bring 
ing  into  view  the  truth  within  as  well  as 
the  truth  without  the  soul;  because  they 
have  accepted  the  reality  of  the  mind  as 
well  as  of  the  brain,  of  the  affections  as 
well  as  of  the  passions,  of  the  intuitions 
as  well  as  of  the  instincts,  of  the  imagina 
tion  as  well  as  of  the  eye. 

These  believers  in  visions,  moreover, 
have  refused  to  accept  all  witnesses  as  of 
equal  credibility  in  the  court  of  reason; 
and  have  insisted  on  an  examination  of 
the  credentials  of  those  who  came  to  tes 
tify  concerning  the  facts  of  life.  They 
have  applied  the  test  of  character  and 
have  challenged  those  whose  record  has 
given  ground  for  suspicion  of  their  com 
petency  and  veracity.  Shall  the  evidence 
of  the  lawless  be  counted  of  equal  author 
ity  with  that  of  those  who  hold  them 
selves  obedient  to  the  law?  Shall  the  re 
port  of  the  drunkard  count  with  that  of 
the  clear-eyed  man  of  integrity?  Shall 
the  man  e£  wngGVerfiable  passions  have 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

equal  weight  with  the  man  who  rules  him 
self?  Shall  he  who  sinks  to  the  animal 
speak  with  the  authority  of  him  who 
rises  to  the  saint  and  hero?  Shall  the 
liar  and  thief  and  sensualist  have  the 
weight  of  the  truthful,  the  honorable,  the 
pure  in  heart? 

In  the  great  court  in  which  life  is  on 
trial  these  witnesses  are  incompetent. 
Their  testimony  often  has  the  thrilling 
interest  of  tragedy,  the  beauty  of  delicate 
art,  the  impressiveness  of  ruined  great 
ness;  it  is  profoundly  interesting  and  sig 
nificant  as  throwing  light  on  the  reactions 
of  lawlessness  on  mind  and  body,  on 
morbid  conditions  of  psychology,  on 
diseases  of  mind  and  soul;  but  it  has  no 
weight  in  interpreting  the  facts  of  life  and 
penetrating  to  the  meaning  of  the  vast 
order  of  things  by  which  men  are  sur 
rounded.  Only  the  sound  in  body  and 
mind,  the  clear-eyed,  those  to  whom 
obedience  to  the  law  of  life  has  brought 
the  knowledge  of  life,  are  entitled  to 
credence  in  the  court  where  life  is  on  trial, 
122 


Discredited  Witnesses 

the  judgment  place  where  its  nature  and 
meaning  are  demanded  and  must  be  re 
vealed. 

In  that  august  place  only  the  sane 
have  a  right  to  be  heard;  but  it  is  a  pa 
thetic  and  significant  fact  that  the  insane 
crowd  the  place  of  judgment  and  pour 
out  their  woes  as  if  they  were  the  sor 
rows  of  mankind  instead  of  the  misery 
they  have  brought  on  themselves;  as  if 
the  uncovering  of  disease  in  their  own 
minds  and  bodies  were  the  uncovering  of 
the  health  of  the  race. 

Only  those  protest  against  the  injustice 
of  the  moral  order  of  life  who  have  never 
obeyed  it  and  do  not  know  what  wonders 
of  strength  and  peace  are  wrought  in  the 
hearts  of  men  by  obedience.  They  bare 
their  self-inflicted  wounds  and,  say,  "  Be 
hold  the  blows  of  fate !  "  They  drama 
tize  the  tragedies  of  sin  of  which  they 
have  made  themselves  the  victims,  and 
cry  aloud,  "  Behold  the  misery  of  the 
world!  "  They  tell  appalling  stories  of 
their  defeated  hopes,  their  ruined  careers, 
123 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

their  blighted  genius,  and  say,     '  This  is 
life." 

Is  it?  Is  the  beauty  of  love  and  self- 
sacrifice  and  purity  to  be  found  behind 
prison  bars?  Are  the  clear  insights,  the 
penetrating  glimpses,  the  far-ranging 
visions  of  the  possibilities  of  the  human 
spirit  to  be  sought  in  the  places  where  the 
insane  are  protected  from  themselves? 
Many  things  are  to  be  learned  among 
criminals  and  the  insane;  they  witness  to 
the  inevitableness  of  the  punishment  that 
follows  swift-footed  on  the  broken  law. 
But  of  the  vast  order  which  lies  behind 
the  law  and  is  protected  by  it  nothing  is 
to  be  learned  in  these  places  of  restraint 
or  punishment.  The  lawbreakers  of  ge 
nius  can  make  an  awful  picture  of  the 
misery  that  follows  the  doing  of  evil;  but 
he  has  no  power  to  depict  the  sweetness 
of  purity,  the  peace  of  integrity,  the  joy 
of  love.  The  destroyers  of  life  know 
nothing  of  the  exceeding  great  rewards  of 
life.  They  fill  the  air  with  their  outcries 
.and  protests,  and  many  are  imposed  upon 
.124 


Discredited  Witnesses 

by  the  volume  of  sound  that  comes  from 
them;  but  if  they  were  multiplied  a  thou 
sandfold,  they  would  still  be  impotent 
witnesses  to  the  nature  and  meaning  of 
life,  because  they  have  disqualified  them 
selves  from  understanding  it.  They  are 
the  witnesses  to  the  tragedy  of  blinding 
the  eyes  and  stopping  the  ears  in  a  world 
of  great  visions  and  noble  harmonies. 


"  There  Are  No  Dead  " 

WE  have  done  much  to  Christianize 
our  farewells  to  those  who  have 
gone  before  us  into  the  next  stage  of  life. 
We  no  longer  darken  the  rooms  that 
now  more  than  ever  need  the  light  and 
warmth  of  the  sun;  we  no  longer  close 
the  windows  as  if  to  shut  out  Nature  at 
the  moment  when  we  are  about  to  give 
back  to  Mother  Earth  all  that  was  mor 
tal  in  the  earthy  career  now  finished;  we 
no  longer  shroud  the  house  in  black,  we 
make  it  sweet  with  flowers,  for  the  hymns 
of  grief  we  are  fast  substituting  the 
hymns  of  victory;  for  words  charged  with 
a  sense  of  loss  we  listen  to  words  that 
hold  wide  the  door  of  hope  and  faith; 
and  on  the  memorials  which,  we  place 
where  they  lie  who  have  vanished  from 
our  sight  we  no  longer  carve  the  skull 
and  cross-bones,  the  hour-glass  and  the 
scythe — we  recall  some  trait  or  quality  or 
126 


"  There  Are  No  Dead  " 

achievement  that  survives  the  body  and 
commemorates  the  spirit. 

We  have  done  much  to  Christianize 
our  treatment  of  what  we  call  death,  to 
emphasize  our  faith  in  the  immortal  life; 
but  we  do  not  take  to  ourselves  the  im 
mense  helpfulness,  the  radiancy  of  joy,  in 
the  sublime  truth  which  Christ  brought 
to  light.  There  is  still  too  much  of  the 
shadowy  vagueness  of  the  early  pagan 
thought  of  the  future;  and  many  are  miss 
ing  not  only  an  hourly  comfort,  but  a 
deep  peace  of  spirit  and  a  glorious  ex 
pectation. 

We  confuse  ourselves  by  the  forms  of 
speech  we  use  when  we  talk  of  this  life 
and  of  the  future  life  as  if  they  were  two 
lives,  of  our  mortal  life  as  if  it  were 
different  in  kind  from  the  immortal  life. 
There  is  only  one  life,  and  that  is  im 
mortal,  here  and  now.  The  life  of  the 
body  is  not  our  life  any  more  than  we  are 
the  houses  we  live  in.  The  house  may 
be  destroyed  or  may  decay,  but  we  are 
not  imprisoned  in  it,  and  its  fate  is  not  our 
127 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

fate.  We  can  go  out  of  it  when  we 
choose  and  make  ourselves  another 
house.  Our  bodies  are  the  servants  of 
our  spirits;  after  a  time  they  may  cease 
to  obey  us,  but  because  the  eyes  refuse  to 
see,  the  sense  of  vision  is  not  impaired; 
because  the  feet  refuse  to  walk,  the  mind 
does  not  cease  to  travel.  When  an  in 
jury  befalls  us,  we  do  not  say,  "  I  am 
broken;"  we  say,  "  My  arm  is  broken." 
In  speech  and  in  action  we  habitually  dis 
sociate  ourselves  from  our  bodies  and  af 
firm  our  superiority  to  them.  Shattered, 
broken,  tortured  with  pain,  we  remained 
undismayed  and  unsubdued.  Ney,  who 
was  called  the  lion  of  the  French  army, 
was  of  highly  sensitive  physical  organiza 
tion.  On  one  occasion,  when  he  was 
directing  a  battle  from  an  eminence  under 
heavy  fire,  he  noticed  that  his  aides  were 
smiling.  Looking  down,  he  saw  that  his 
knees  were  rattling  against  his  saddle. 
'  You  poor  knees,"  he  said,  "  how  you 
would  rattle  if  you  knew  where  I  am  go 
ing  to  take  you  in  a  minute !  " 
128 


"  There  Are  No  Dead  " 

The  bravest  men  are  not  those  who  are 
insensible  to  physical  fear,  but  those  who 
master  it  by  courage  of  spirit,  the  purest 
and  noblest  are  not  those  who  have  never 
felt  the  temptations  of  the  body  but  those 
who  have  resisted  them.  There  is  no 
body  in  the  sense  of  something  fixed  and 
complete  apart  from  the  spirit;  the  body, 
like  the  earth  to  which  it  returns,  is  never 
the  same  two  days  in  succession.  It  is 
always  changing,  and  the  man  of  seventy- 
five  has  already  lived  in  seven  or  eight 
bodies.  It  is  literally  true  that  we  "  die 
daily  "  in  the  only  sense  in  which  we  ever 
die;  that  is  to  say,  we  change;  which  is 
what  death  really  means. 

When  the  boy  in  "The  Blue  Bird" 
goes  with  fear  and  trembling  into  the 
burying  ground,  he  finds  it  a  sunny  mea 
dow,  and  cries  out  to  his  frightened  sis 
ter,  "  There  are  no  dead !  "  The  ques 
tion  is  sometimes  asked,  "  Does  death 
end  all?  "  Death  ends  nothing;  it  is  sim 
ply  a  change.  There  are  no  dead  in  the 
sense  in  which  the  phrase  is  commonly 
129 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

used;  there  are  only  the  living  in  the  vast 
mystery  of  life  which  enfolds  us  all,  on 
the  fathomless  stream  of  life  which  bears 
us  all  forward.  We  are  here  for  a  little 
time,  as  we  are  often  in  inns  where  we 
make  friends  who  are  dear  to  us,  and  then 
we  leave  them  and  go  on  to  another  stage 
in  our  journey,  we  miss  them  and  they 
miss  us,  and  neither  their  places  nor  ours 
are  ever  taken  by  others.  But  we  see 
new  landscapes  and  pass  through  new  ex 
periences  into  a  larger  world,  and  they 
presently  follow  us.  We  are  separated 
and  are  often  lonely,  but  we  look  forward 
joyfully  to  new  sights  and  sounds,  and  to 
the  hour  when,  further  on  in  the  journey 
we  shall  look  into  their  eyes  and  hear 
their  voices. 

To  think  of  life  as  one  and  indivisible, 
of  immortality  as  our  possession,  here 
and  now,  of  death  as  normal  change  in  an 
eternal  process  of  growth,  of  those  whom 
we  call  dead  as  more  intensely  alive  than 
when  we  saw  them,  is  to  transform  the 
experience  which  has  overshadowed  the 
130 


"  There  Are  No  Dead  " 

world  for  centuries  as  the  end  of  hap 
piness  into  a  larger  freedom  and  joy,  and 
to  make  immortality  not  a  vague  expecta 
tion  but  a  glorious  opening  of  the  doors 
and  windows  of  the  house  of  life. 
"  While  we  poor  wayfarers  still  toil,  with 
hot  and  bleeding  feet,  along  the  highway 
and  the  dust  of  life,"  writes  Dr.  Martin- 
eau,  "  our  companions  have  but  mounted 
the  divergent  path,  to  explore  the  more 
sacred  streams,  and  visit  the  divine  vales, 
and  wander  amid  the  everlasting  Alps  of 
God's  upper  provinces  of  creation.  And 
so  we  keep  up  the  courage  of  our  hearts, 
and  refresh  ourselves  with  the  memories 
of  love,  and  travel  forward  in  the  ways 
of  duty,  with  less  weary  step,  feeling  ever 
for  the  hand  of  God,  and  listening  for 
the  domestic  voices  of  the  immortals 
whose  happy  welcome  awaits  us.  Death, 
in  short,  under  the  Christian  aspect,  is 
but  God's  method  of  colonization;  the 
transition  from  this  mother  country  of 
our  race  to  the  fairer  and  newer  world  of 
our  emigration." 

131 


The  Larger  Plan 

IN  those  years  which  we  call  prosper 
ous  because  our  plans  are  successfully 
carried  out,  and  our  fields  are  fertile, 
and  the  shadow  of  sorrow  does  not  fall 
athwart  the  sunshine,  we  have  a  sense  of 
being  at  ease  in  the  world,  of  mastery  of 
the  conditions  of  life.  There  steals  into 
our  minds  the  belief  that  we  have  learned 
the  secrets  of  success,  and  into  our  hearts 
the  feeling  that  God  is  watching  over  us 
in  a  special  sense,  and  that  we  are  trusted 
with  the  shaping  of  our  lives;  and  this 
confidence  in  ourselves  is  reinforced  by 
the  deference  which  is  always  paid,  not 
so  much  to  the  character  as  to  the 
judgment  of  those  to  whom  success  seems 
to  have  become  a  matter  of  habit.  In 
the  warm  air  of  outward  prosperity  the 
direction  of  life  seems  to  have  been  put 
in  our  hands  and  our  will  takes  the  place 
of  the  will  of  God. 

132 


The  Larger  Plan 

But  sooner  or  later  this  seeming  se 
curity  is  disturbed;  plans  go  awry;  dear 
hopes  are  blasted;  defeat  comes  late  and 
brings  an  added  bitterness  with  it;  over 
the  happy  circle  apparently  strongly  in 
trenched  against  misfortune  sorrow  hangs 
like  a  cloud  ominous  with  disaster. 

Then  comes  the  crisis  in  our  spiritual 
life;  we  have  become  accustomed  to  re 
gard  our  will  as  the  will  of  God;  can  we 
make  the  will  of  God  our  will?  We 
have  thought  of  Providence  as  a  warm 
light  making  our  path  a  line  of  bright 
ness;  can  we  walk  through  storm  and 
disaster,  encompassed  with  darkness,  and 
still  feel  that  "  we  cannot  drift  beyond 
His  love  and  care  "  ?  Can  we  cease  to 
plan  each  step  into  the  unknown  future 
and  accept  His  plan? 

This  is  a  strength  beyond  the  strength 
of  the  man  who  is  strong  in  himself:  the 
strength  of  the  man  who  is  strong  in  his 
faith  in  God.  There  is  a  higher  wisdom 
than  that  which  plans  with  clear-sighted 
prevision  for  the  future:  the  wisdom 
133 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

which  accepts  the  plan  of  God  and  loyally 
works  with  it,  without  repining  or  dis 
couragement  or  paralysis  of  energy. 
There  is  a  truer  prosperity  than  the  fer 
tility  of  our  fields  and  the  increasing  re 
turns  of  our  investments:  the  prosperity 
of  growing  integrity,  of  deepening  love, 
of  widening  sympathy,  of  that  calm 
strength  of  soul  which  takes  a  man  from 
under  the  dominion  of  things  and  puts 
him  under  the  dominion  of  God;  which 
transfers  him  from  servitude  to  things 
that  surround  him  to  that  loyalty  to  the 
things  of  the  spirit  which  sets  his  soul 
erect  above  the  changes  of  his  mortal 
condition. 

"  The  soul  ceases  to  weary  itself  with 
planning  and  foreseeing,"  wrote  Jean 
Nicolas  Grou,  "  giving  itself  up  to  God's 
Holy  Spirit  within,  and  .to  the  teachings 
of  his  providence  without.  He  is  not 
forever  fretting  as  to  his  progress,  or 
looking  back  to  see  how  far  he  is  getting 
on;  rather  he  goes  steadily  and  quietly  on, 
and  makes  all  the  more  progress  because 
134 


The  Larger  Plan 

it  is  unconscious.  So  he  never  gets 
troubled  and  discouraged;  if  he  falls,  he 
humbles  himself,  but  gets  up  at  once,  and 
goes  on  with  renewed  earnestness." 

The  burden  of  shaping  an  immortal 
life  with  so  slight  a  knowledge  of  its  pos 
sibilities  and  of  the  outcome  of  events  is 
too  heavy  to  be  borne.  We  all  move 
about  in  "  worlds  half  realized;  "  we  do 
not  know  at  the  moment  what  happenings 
are  fortunate  and  what  are  unfortunate. 
The  years  that  seem  prosperous  to  us  are 
often  barren  of  real  happiness  of  that 
growth  of  the  spirit  which  is  the  end  of 
all  living;  while  the  years  that  seem  bleak 
and  unfertile  often  enrich  us  beyond  our 
dreams.  No  man  has  the  knowledge  of 
the  future,  the  insight  into  events,  the 
wisdom  of  experience,  to  plan  his  life 
completely  and  carry  his  plans  into  execu 
tion.  God  alone  knows  how  the  human 
spirit  can  fulfill  its  great  destinies.  Our 
part  is  to  work  with  him;  to  recognize 
our  ignorance  and  his  knowledge,  and 
consciously  to  hold  our  plans  in  subjec- 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

tion  to  his  will.  Then  when  our  best-laid 
and  most  cherished  plans  go  awry  we 
shall  have  no  sense  of  failure,  but  the 
consciousness  of  a  vaster  design  being 
wrought  out  through  us  and  for  us. 


Love's  Second  Sight 

AMONG  the  maxims  which  have 
their  roots  in  confusion  of  thought 
none  is  more  misleading  than  the  ancient 
and  well-worn  aphorism  that  love  is 
blind.  The  fable  of  Psyche  has  been  tra 
ditionally  interpreted  as  a  pathetic  in 
stance  of  that  curiosity  which  opened 
Pandora's  box  and  let  a  swarm  of  evils 
fly  over  the  world,  and  which  drove  Elsa 
to  put  the  fateful  question  to  Lohengrin 
at  the  very  moment  when  her  joy  was  at 
its  consummation.  The  beautiful  story, 
so  weighted  with  the  deeper  meaning  of 
things,  bears  another  higher  interpreta 
tion;  for  the  soul  cannot  surrender  until 
it  understands,  nor  drain  the  cup  of  the 
deepest  experience  until  it  sees  clearly  the 
figure  in  whose  hands  it  is  held. 

If  love  were  blind,  life  would  sink  into 

chaos;  for  love  is  the  force  that  creates, 

the  power  that  sustains,  the  principle  that 

governs.     It  is  the  love  .of  his  .art  which 

137 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

draws  the  artist,  unwearied  by  heroic 
apprenticeship,  into  the  very  heart  of 
his  art  and  makes  his  passion  one  with 
insight,  skill,  the  final  mastery  of  the 
line.  If  love  were  blind,  those  forms  in 
which  the  visions  and  ideals  that  bear 
with  them  the  fortunes  of  the  race,  be 
cause  they  are  the  symbols  of  its  spirit 
ual  insights  and  achievements,  would 
never  have  been  set  in  temples  and  on 
highways  by  those  who  counted  no  toil 
too  heavy,  no  sacrifice  too  great,  that 
celebrated  the  marriage  of  love  and  art. 
To  him  only  who  loves  with  a  consuming 
passion  the  final  veil  is  lifted  and  the 
ultimate  skill  conveyed ;  for  knowledge 
and  love  are  one  at  the  heart  of  things, 
and  art,  which  is  the  record  of  the  crea 
tive  spirit  working  with  and  through  men, 
touches  perfection  only  when  passion  and 
intelligence  are  so  blended  that  out  of 
this  commingling  another  word  is  spoken 
in  the  revelation  of  the  divine  to  the 
human. 

Love  is  never  blind;  those  who  love 
138 


Love's  Second  Sight 

are  often  blind,  and  to  their  passion  is 
charged  that  which  belongs  to  lack  of 
faculty.  Love  does  not  open  new  senses 
or  convey  new  faculties;  it  vivifies,  clari 
fies,  intensifies  the  senses  and  faculties 
which  already  exist.  In  its  first  day 
break  the  world  lies  half  concealed  in  a 
mist  which  poetizes  rather  than  distorts 
or  falsifies  proportions,  relations,  quali 
ties;  when  the  light  grows  clear,  per 
spectives  are  corrected,  outlines  become 
distinct,  hidden  lovelinesses  come  into 
view,  hidden  defects  disclose  themselves; 
not  because  the  light  and  warmth  are  less, 
but  because  they  are  greater.  To 
measure  the  depth  of  love  by  its  blindness 
would  be  to  appraise  the  splendor  and 
fertilizing  power  of  the  sun  by  the  rays 
which  shine  level  from  the  horizon  rather 
than  by  those  which  fall  upon  the  soil  and 
search  its  secret  places  for  every  potency 
of  life. 

The  blindness  of  love  is  a  measure  of 
its   inadequacy,   an  evidence   that  it  has 
yet  to  work  its  miracle  of  knowledge  as 
139 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

well  as  of  surrender.  The  mother  who 
sees  no  fault  in  her  child  is  blinded,  not 
by  her  love,  but  by  her  dullness  of  per 
ception;  the  wife  who  finds  no  defect  in 
her  husband  may  make  him  comfortable 
but  cannot  make  him  great;  the  friend 
who  finds  only  content  in  his  love  for  his 
friend  is  denied  the  highest  service  of 
friendship;  for,  as  Emerson  said,  "our 
friends  are  those  who  make  us  do  what 
we  can."  The  faithful  mothers,  wives, 
and  friends  who  accept  us  as  we  are  as 
often  harm  as  help  us;  they  live  with  us 
only  on  the  lower  levels  of  being;  they 
neither  climb  nor  stir  us  to  climb.  Love 
that  is  content  robs  us  of  the  best  it  has 
to  bestow,  and  is  satisfied  with  gifts  of 
bread  and  wine  when  it  might  bestow 
upon  us  vision,  inspiration,  character. 
They  love  noblest  who  see  clearest,  and 
they  bind  us  with  bands  of  steel  who  so 
awaken  the  best  in  us  that  when  at  last 
we  put  forth  our  hands  to  grasp  the 
highest  things,  behold !  our  hands  are 
clasped  in  theirs. 

140 


Love's  Second  Sight 

The  beginning  of  love  is  often  a  brief 
madness;  the  end  of  love  is  perfect  sanity, 
between  the  dawn  and  the  full  day  lies 
the  long,  gradual  illumination.  Irony, 
satire,  and  cheap  cynicism  must  not  make 
us  blind  to  the  beauty  of  the  illusion  in 
which  love  begins — the  illusion  of  per 
fection.  For  love  seeks  perfection  be 
cause  in  perfection  alone  its  possibilities 
are  perfectly  realized.  There  is  an  hour 
of  prophecy  in  all  noble  beginnings.  The 
artist  dreams  the  dream  of  beauty  before 
he  enters  on  the  long  path  of  toil  and 
anguish  of  spirit  which  must  be  traveled 
to  the  bitter  end  before  that  dream  be 
comes  his  possession.  First  in  every 
great  career  comes  an  hour  of  vision; 
then  years  of  toil  and  discipline  when  the 
vision  seems  to  have  vanished  utterly; 
then  its  gradual  disclosure  in  the  work  of 
a  lifetime  as  the  work  nears  its  com 
pletion  and  its  lines  come  into  view. 
Ideals  are  idle  dreams  unless  they  are 
wrought  into  character  by  the  routine, 
drudgery,  and  toil  which  seem  at  times 
141 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

to     remove     them     to     an     inaccessible 
distance. 

Love  begins  with  a  vision:  it  passes 
through  the  travail  of  the  years;  the  dis 
illusions  which  are  part  of  the  waking 
day;  the  monotony  of  daily  duty;  the 
wearing  away  of  the  flush  of  the  morn 
ing,  the  fading  of  the  earliest  bloom; 
and  then  at  the  end,  behold!  the  vision 
is  there  again,  no  longer  lying  like  a 
bloom  diffused  from  the  sky,  but  like  a 
loveliness  rising  from  the  depths  of  life. 
Between  the  vision  and  its  realization  lies 
the  training  in  clear  sight,  the  education 
in  full  knowledge,  which  the  blind  call 
disillusion  but  which  the  clear-sighted  call 
the  divine  opportunity  of  love;  and  the 
realization  of  the  vision  depends,  not  on 
the  early  glow,  but  on  the  high,  clear, 
later  light.  Not  to  the  blind,  the  in 
dulgent,  the  slothful  lovers  come  the 
great  realizations  of  the  final  growth,  but 
to  those  whom  love  has  made  wise  in 
severity,  resolute  in  demand,  heroic  in 
loyalty  to  the  highest  in  the  beloved. 
142 


Love's  Second  Sight 

Perfection  of  character,  entire  harmony 
of  nature,  instant  adjustment  of  mood 
with  mood,  if  they  were  possible  at  the 
beginning,  would  defeat  the  highest  serv 
ice  and  joy  of  love,  which  is  to  see  in 
the  imperfect  the  promise  of  the  perfect 
as  the  deep-sighted  see  in  man  the  image 
and  nature  of  the  divine. 

It  is  the  second  sight  of  love  which 
makes  it  the  joy  of  life  as  well  as  its 
inspiration;  behind  the  present  imper 
fection  which  it  clearly  sees,  rises  always 
the  image  of  that  beauty  which  is  to  be 
when  all  the  ends  of  mortal  life  have 
been  fulfilled.  It  is  to  the  blind  that 
clear  sight  seems  disillusion;  to  the 
open-eyed  it  is  the  beginning  of  the 
realization  of  the  vision;  it  is  the  first 
sight  which  prepares  for  the  second 
sight.  Love  can  neither  offer  nor  de 
mand  perfection;  for  perfection  in  this 
mortal  life  would  be  as  abnormal,  unwel 
come  and  repellent  as  a  child  with  the 
knowledge  and  experience  of  a  man.  It 
is  in  the  search  for  perfection  that  love 
H3 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

finds  its  highest  opportunity  and  its 
deepening  joy;  in  its  vision  that  the  sky 
above  it  kindles  with  a  glory  which  does 
not  fade  when  the  sun  sinks  to  the  west, 
but  glows  as  if  an  immortal  morning  were 
breaking. 


144 


The  Child  and  the  World 

Christmas,   1903 

THE  Child  born  in  Bethlehem  nine 
teen  hundred  years  ago  came  into 
a  world  ruled  by  force,  under  the  domin 
ion  of  a  race  notable  among  the  races  for 
its  organizing  and  governing  genius  and 
for  its  lack  of  spiritual  ideas.  It  has  been 
said  of  the  Romans  that  they  borrowed 
their  religion  and  their  philosophy  and 
stole  their  art.  No  one  of  the  supreme 
interests  of  life,  save  that  of  conduct, 
was  supreme  with  the  best  of  them;  in  no 
one  of  the  highest  fields  of  endeavor  did 
they  produce  works  of  the  highest  genius. 
So  capable  a  race  could  not  utterly  lack 
religious  ideals,  and  the  charm  of  their 
most  intimate  feeling  for  the  divine  is 
found  in  their  domestic  deities  and  wor 
ship,  in  the  sweet  familiarities  with  spirits 
of  localities,  so  sympathetically  described 
in  the  early  chapters  of  "  Marius  the 
H5 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

Epicurean."  Such  a  race  could  not,  and 
did  not,  lack  noble-minded  and  noble- 
hearted  men;  but  when  all  the  poetry  and 
piety  of  the  Romans  is  generously 
measured,  how  far  the  sum  of  these 
things  falls  below  their  unparalleled  vigor 
of  action,  their  marvelous  power  of  or 
ganization  ! 

It  was  a  hard,  brutal  world,  in  spite 
of  the  beauty  and  refinement  of  certain  as 
pects  of  its  civilization,  into  which  Christ 
was  born.  He  came,  the  incarnation  of 
helplessness,  into  a  society  in  which  the 
strongest  ruled  by  virtue  of  the  power  of 
destruction;  he  came,  the  Child  of  divine 
tenderness  and  love,  into  a  world  in 
which  men  held  power  more  precious 
than  love,  and  the  ability  to  strike  above 
the  ability  to  bear.  There  could  not 
have  been  a  more  appalling  disparity  than 
that  which  existed  between  the  Child  in 
the  cradle  and  the  ideals  and  order  of  the 
society  which  that  Child  was  sent  to 
transform.  The  task  laid  upon  the  Child 
seemed  impossible  of  achievement.  To 
146 


The  Child  and  the  World 

set  a  Child  to  destroy  the  rule  of  force 
seemed  like  the  wild  dream  of  some  fana 
tic  -who  knew  neither  the  power  with 
which  he  worked  nor  the  power  which  he 
would  destroy. 

But  Rome  has  gone  long  ago,  and  the 
chief  association  of  the  name  to  the 
modern  world  is  its  worship  of  the  Child. 
On  Christmas  Eve,  in  all  the  Western 
world,  and  wherever  men  or  ideas  of 
Western  birth  are  found  in  the  East,  the 
face  of  the  Child  will  look  out  of  the  mist 
of  years  as  the  divinest  vision  which  has 
ever  lightened  the  darkness  of  the  world; 
and  on  Christmas  morning  there  will  be 
a  pealing  of  bells  that  will  follow  the  sun 
round  the  globe  announcing  again  the 
glad  tidings  that  Christ  is  born  in 
Bethlehem. 

In  that  wonderful  story  many  great 
truths  are  looted;  supreme  among  them 
the  blessed  fact  that  all  the  best  things 
of  which  the  noblest  men  and  women 
have  dreamed  are  true;  that  no  thought 
of  life  can  be  too  great,  and  no  hope  of 
147 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

the  future  too  blissful.  If  the  most 
thoroughgoing  pessimist  of  to-day  could 
be  put  back  into  the  social,  political,  and 
industrial  conditions  into  which  Christ 
came,  so  as  to  see  them  close  at  hand  and 
feel  the  weight  of  them  in  his  heart,  he 
would  break  into  a  psalm  of  thanks 
giving.  We  have  gone  but  a  little  way 
towards  the  establishment  of  the  King 
dom  of  Heaven  on  earth,  but  we  have 
gone  far  enough  to  change  the  whole 
moral  landscape  of  life,  and  to  light  a 
thousand  fires  of  hope  and  cheer  where 
the  night  lay  chill  and  black  when  the 
Child  was  laid  in  the  manger  at  Bethle 
hem. 

To-day  that  Child  is  born  again  in  a 
world  ruled  by  greed  rather  than  by 
force;  a  world  in  which  men  have  gone 
far  towards  learning  the  great  lessons  of 
tolerance,  forbearance,  and  peace,  but  in 
which  they  have  still  to  learn  the  great 
lesson  of  mutual  responsibility  for  and 
to  one  another.  The  struggle  for  wealth 
was  never  so  keen  and  bitter;  never  were 
148 


The  Child  and  the  World 

so  many  men  absorbed  in  it  to  the  exclu 
sion  of  all  interest  in  the  things  that  make 
money  worth  having  when  it  has  been 
gotten.  The  rush  and  tumult  of  the 
struggle  are  sometimes  almost  unbearable 
to  those  who  know  what  life  is  and  what 
it  means;  the  heartlessness  and  needless- 
ness  of  the  fight  are  sometimes  so  re 
volting  that  one  longs  to  get  where  no 
sound  or  sign  of  it  can  penetrate;  the 
vulgarity  and  sham  of  it  fill  rational  men 
and  women  with  loathing.  The  brutal 
indifference  to  the  rights  of  others;  the 
relentless  crushing  of  the  weak  by  the 
strong;  the  coarse  setting  aside  of  the 
sanctities  of  marriage  and  the  multipli 
cation  of  legalized  adulteries  by  means 
of  cheap  and  easy  divorce;  the  shoddy 
splendor  and  coarse  manners  of  much 
miscalled  society;  the  push  of  men  whose 
only  object  is  to  "  get  there,"  the  strident 
voices  of  women  who  have  given  up  the 
old  refinements  of  womanhood  without 
gaining  any  real  power  or  efficiency  in 
exchange — all  the  noise  and  confusion 
149 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

and  crudity  and  vulgarity  of  the  modern 
world  at  times  almost  blight  the  hopes 
and  blast  the  spirits  of  those  who  love 
the  best  things. 

There  are  many  side-lights  to  be 
thrown  on  this  depressing  condition  of 
things  which  greatly  change  its  charac 
ter  and  give  it  a  different  and  a  far 
brighter  aspect.  At  the  very  worst  it  is 
a  far  kindlier,  more  human,  more  unself 
ish  world  than  that  in  which  Christ  was 
born.  But,  passing  all  those  things  by, 
the  season  brings  one  great  and  unshak 
able  hope  to  our  hearts:  The  Child  who 
transformed  the  World  of  Force  will 
also  transform  the  World  of  Greed ! 
The  task  seems  to  many  to-day  almost 
impossible  of  accomplishment,  so  great 
is  the  disparity  between  the  invisible 
power  of  love  and  the  organized  force 
of  selfishness.  But  love  and  greed  are 
far  more  nearly  matched  to  the  eye  of 
the  most  superficial  observer  than  were 
love  and  power.  The  World  of  Greed 
is  already  penetrated  by  the  influences 
150 


The  Child  and  the  World 

that  flow  from  the  heart  and  mind  of 
the  Child.  Intent  as  that  world  is  on 
its  own  success,  it  already  pays  love  the 
respect  of  a  decent  regard  for  appear 
ances;  vulgar  as  it  is,  it  is  stirred  by  an 
uneasy  consciousness  that  there  are  better 
things  than  it  possesses;  eager  and  brutal 
as  it  is  in  pursuit  of  its  ends,  it  is  smitten 
with  the  growing  knowledge  that  it  is 
being  mocked  by  that  to  which  it  has 
given  its  heart,  and  that  there  is  some 
thing  at  work  in  society  which  defeats  its 
final  and  perfect  satisfaction  with  its 
gains. 

The  bells  of  Christmas-tide  ring  out 
the  ultimate  doom  of  greed  as  they  long 
ago  rang  out  the  ultimate  doom  of  force. 
Men  may  think  and  say  what  they  choose, 
but  there  is  a  power  in  the  Child  which 
silently  and  steadily  saps  all  evil  or 
lower  powers;  a  wisdom  in  the  Child 
which  shines  more  and  more  above  the 
wisdom  of  the  wisest;  a  beauty  which 
sinks  deeper  and  deeper  into  the  con 
sciousness  of  the  world;  an  ideal  which 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

relentlessly  judges  all  lesser  ideals  and 
rejects  them.  It  may  be  that  two 
thousand  years  more  must  pass  before  the 
Kingdom  of  Greed  follows  the  Kingdom 
of  Force ;  but  every  year  the  power  of  the 
Child  gains  on  the  base  and  brutal  forces 
which  oppose  it,  and  every  year  the  love 
which  the  Child  came  to  reveal  lights  the 
dark  skies  with  a  kindling  promise  of  day. 


152 


The  Deepest  Thanksgiving 

FRANCIS  OF  SALES,  a  saint  in  na 
ture  and  life  as  well  as  in  name,  in 
enumerating  some  causes  of  thanksgiving 
in  the  quaint  language  of  the  seventeenth 
century,  uses  these  very  suggestive  words : 

Consider  the  bodily  gifts  which  God  has 
given  you;  what  a  body,  what  conveniences  to 
maintain  it,  what  health  and  lawful  comforts 
for  it;  what  friends  and  assistances.  And  con 
sider  all  this  in  comparison  with  the  lot  of  so 
many  other  persons,  much  more  worthy  than 
yourself,  who  are  destitute  of  all  these  blessings; 
some  defective  in  body,  health,  and  limbs;  oth 
ers  subjected  to  reproaches,  contempt,  and  dis 
honor;  others  weighed  down  with  poverty;  and 
God  has  not  suffered  you  to  be  so  miserable. 

Consider  your  gifts  of  mind.  How  many 
are  there  in  the  world  stupid,  mad,  foolish ;  and 
why  are  you  not  among  them?  God  has  fa 
vored  you.  How  many  are  there  who  have 
been  brought  up  coarsely  and  in  gross  igno 
rance?  And  by  God's  providence  you  have 
been  well  nurtured  and  educated. 
153 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

Consider  your  spiritual  graces.  .  .  .  God  has 
given  you  a  knowledge  of  Himself  even  from 
your  youth.  How  often  has  He  given  you  His 
sacraments?  How  often  inspirations,  interior 
illuminations,  and  warnings  for  your  amend 
ment?  How  often  has  He  pardoned  you  your 
faults?  How  often  has  He  delivered  you  from 
occasions  to  sin  to  which  you  have  been  exposed  ? 
And  have  not  your  past  years  been  so  much  time 
and  opportunity  to  advance  the  good  of  your 
soul?  Consider  in  detail  how  good  and  gra 
cious  God  has  been  to  you. 

On  Thanksgiving  Day,  honored  now 
by  the  usage  of  many  generations,  em 
phasis  is  generally  laid  on  those  occa 
sions  for  gratitude  which  have  a  common 
claim  on  all  the  Nation;  those  obvious, 
general  blessings  which,  because  they 
take  on  National  aspects,  seem  to  have 
the  most  impressive  significance.  For 
peace,  health,  freedom,  prosperity,  the 
large  yield  of  the  soil,  and  widespread 
ease  of  condition,  there  cannot  be  too 
much  gratitude.  For  these  material  and 
physical  prosperities  are  also  spiritual 
signs  of  well-being;  when  the  Nation 
154 


The  Deepest  Thanksgiving 

prospers  in  field  and  flock  and  ship,  it  is 
because  the  Nation  has  been  industrious 
and  frugal  and  has  not  held  back  its 
hand  from  danger  and  toil. 

But  there  are  other  and  deeper  causes 
for  thanksgiving,  and  these  are  clearly 
seen  only  when  behind  the  general 
thanksgiving  men  offer  up  to  God  their 
heartfelt  thanks  for  those  conditions 
which  provide  for  the  growth  of  the 
spirit  in  freedom  and  power.  "  Consider 
in  detail,"  writes  St.  Francis,  "  how  good 
and  gracious  God  has  been  to  you." 
Deeper  than  all  other  reasons  for  thanks 
giving  is  the  nature  of  God.  Since  He 
is  what  He  is,  all  life  takes  on  a  joyful 
meaning,  in  the  light  of  which  hope 
shines  through  sorrow,  and  trial  becomes 
a  way  of  strength,  and  work  a  spiritual 
opportunity,  and  death  holds  in  its  hands 
the  lamp  of  immortality.  Because  God 
is  love,  every  man's  sins  are  punished; 
because  God  is  merciful,  the  easy  road 
to  corruption  is  set  thick  with  difficulties; 
because  God  watches  over  them,  men 
155 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

who  have  gone  astray  are  suddenly  dis 
covered  in  their  iniquities;  because  God 
will  accept  nothing  ultimately  but  the  best 
in  every  human  soul,  the  discipline  of  life 
is  searching,  the  burdens  of  life  heavy, 
the  disappointments  of  life  manifold. 
Because  God  would  make  us  like  himself, 
life  is  one  long,  severe,  exacting  educa 
tion.  Because  we  are  immortal,  we  are 
never  permitted  to  rest  in  mortal  con 
ditions,  to  find  satisfaction  with  mortal 
possessions,  to  secure  content  in  this 
mortal  life. 

Above  and  below  gratitude  for  pleas 
ant  paths  and  fertile  fields  and  surcease 
of  great  anxieties  there  ought  to  be  joy 
unspeakable  in  that  gift  of  spiritual  life 
which  transforms  this  changing  life, 
turns  its  apparent  adversities  into  bless 
ings,  its  burdens  into  sources  of  strength, 
its  bitter  partings  into  prophecies  of  bliss 
ful  reunions.  Let  every  man  search  his 
heart  and  his  life  and  "  consider  in  detail 
how  good  and  gracious  God  has  been." 


156 


Lodgings  and  Homes 

THE  restlessness  of  the  age  shows 
itself  in  nothing  more  disastrously 
than  in  the  substitution  of  lodgings  for 
homes.  Lodgings  have  an  important 
place  in  the  economy  of  modern  life; 
they  are  often  extremely  comfortable; 
they  afford  greatly  needed  rest  and 
change;  they  make  privacy  and  family 
life  possible  in  foreign  countries;  they  are 
admirable  places  of  refuge  in  prolonged 
or  exhausting  travel.  But  they  are  tem 
porary  and  provisional;  they  provide 
shelter  for  short  periods,  in  times  of 
change,  in  vacations;  but  they  are  not, 
and  they  cannot  be,  solid  foundations  of 
repose,  growth,  the  full  and  free  life. 

The  child  misses  things  of  inestimable 
value  if  he  is  not  born  in  a  home;  and 
childhood  loses  immeasurably  if  the  word 
home  does  not  gain  from  its  daily  experi 
ence  a  wealth  of  sweetness,  trust,  associa 
tion,  sense  of  security. 
157 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

In  youth,  when  the  "  year  of  wander 
ing  " —  which  is  so  rich  in  the  flowering  of 
the  imagination  and  the  opening  of  the 
spirit  to  the  beauty  and  wonder  of  the 
world — comes,  the  home  is  a  rich  and 
potent  background  of  pure  memory,  of 
steadying  impulses,  of  anchorage  of  the 
affections. 

When  the  work  of  life  is  at  the  flood, 
the  home  is  a  refuge  from  the  disheart 
ening  influences  which  sap  the  strength 
of  the  most  aspiring,  a  place  of  peace 
where  the  vision  grows  clear  and  cour 
age  returns  and  the  armor  is  put  on 
with  new  heart;  and  neither  for  man  nor 
for  woman  can  any  kind  of  success,  in 
fluence,  or  power  compensate  for  its  loss. 
Sometimes  the  home  must  be  sacrificed 
for  some  high  duty;  but  nothing  in  con 
temporary  life  is  sadder  than  the  sur 
render  of  the  home  for  those  lesser  ends 
which  appeal  so  strongly  in  youth  to  men 
and  women,  and  which,  as  time  goes  on, 
yield  so  little  lasting  reward  or  satisfac 
tion.  To  exchange  a  home  for  what  is 


Lodgings  and  Homes 

called  a  "  career  "  is,  in  most  cases,  to 
invite  at  the  end  of  the  years  loneliness, 
heart-sickness,  and  a  deepening  sense  of 
having  missed  the  best  things  in  life. 

For  the  home  is  not  only  the  sacred 
inclosure  in  which  the  finest  and  deepest 
affections  are  nourished,  the  tenderest 
sympathies  developed,  the  truest  and 
most  fruitful  impulses  confirmed  and 
strengthened;  it  is  also  the  place  of  the 
most  searching  and  liberating  education. 
No  later  teacher  has  such  access  to  the 
spirit,  such  approaches  to  the  heart,  as 
those  who  enfold  the  young  life  in  an 
atmosphere  of  which  it  is  unconscious, 
but  which  penetrates  and  gives  color  to 
its  most  secret  thoughts.  The  vast  ma 
jority  of  the  fundamental  ideas  come  to 
the  child  while  he  is  still  unaware  of 
their  significance  and  unable  to  give  them 
expression.  As  Titian,  painting  with  the 
stir  and  movement  of  the  vast  energies  of 
Venice  about  him,  and  under  the  spell  of 
her  superb  vitality  expressed  in  such 
splendor  as  no  other  city  has  ever  been 
159 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

clothed  with,  put  his  childhood  at  Pieve 
da  Cadore  into  his  pictures  in  a  long 
succession  of  mountain  backgrounds,  so 
every  man  and  woman  of  imagination 
constantly  recalls  the  "  long,  long 
thoughts  "  of  youth,  and  draws  upon  the 
inexhaustible  capital  of  ideas,  dreams, 
visions,  and  divinations  which  were  part 
of  life  in  the  quiet  places  and  hours  of 
home;  and  in  maturer  life  this  silent  edu 
cation  is  more  profound,  more  spiritual, 
more  illuminating  than  that  which  is  fur 
nished  by  the  Church  or  the  State,  the 
other  great  institutional  schools  of  so 
ciety.  We  are  so  dominated  by  purely 
academic  ideals  that  our  conceptions  of 
education  are  often  as  superficial  as  they 
are  arrogant  and  positive;  and  in  our  de 
votion  to  methods  and  instruments,  to 
mere  acquisition,  to  the  trade-marks  of 
education,  we  lose  sight  of  its  great  reali 
ties:  the  awakening  of  the  spirit,  the 
quickening  of  the  affections,  the  libera 
ting  of  the  imagination,  the  deliverance 
from  the  dominion  of  names  and  forms, 
1 60 


Lodgings  and  Homes 

the  birth  into  freedom  and  power. 
Goethe's  mother  did  more  for  the  train 
ing  of  his  genius  than  the  University  of 
Strassburg;  Ruskin  drew  more  inspira 
tion  from  the  beauty  and  nobility  of  those 
early  readings  of  the  Bible  with  his 
mother  than  from  his  studies  at  Oxford; 
the  atmosphere  of  the  quiet  rectory  at 
Somersby  left  a  deeper  impress  on  the 
sensitive  mind  of  Tennyson  than  the  years 
at  Cambridge. 

There  is  no  spectacle  in  life  more  pa 
thetic  than  homeless  old  age.  At  the  end 
of  the  working  years,  when  the  final  pe 
riod  of  ripening  comes,  the  clearing  of 
the  air  after  the  dust  of  the  highway  is 
laid,  the  opening  of  the  windows  of  the 
soul  to  the  tranquil  sunset  light,  the  home 
becomes  a  temple  as  well  as  a  refuge. 
There  is  gathered  up  and  kept  with  pious 
care  the  remembrance  of  the  fragrance 
of  the  deeds  which  the  world  so  soon 
forgets;  there  is  preserved  the  memory 
of  the  long  integrity,  the  gracious  court 
esy,  the  old-time  helpfulness;  there  wait 
161 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

those  delicate  ministries,  those  tender 
services,  that  reverence  which  distills  its 
perfumes  in  watchful  and  unforgetting 
care,  which  are  sweet  and  satisfying  when 
fame  has  lost  its  magic,  applause  its  in 
toxication,  and  the  rush  and  tumult  of 
work  and  strife  have  become  a  faint,  far 
sound  on  the  horizon. 

And  these  deep  and  permanent  influ 
ences  which,  more  than  any  others,  shape 
the  character;  these  sweet  and  spiritual 
consolations  and  rewards  over  which 
time  has  no  dominion;  this  rich  and  lib 
erating  education  which  colleges  and  uni 
versities  only  amplify  and  clarify  — 
these  rarest  and  most  sacred  things  are 
lightly  put  aside  by  hosts  of  men  and 
women  for  the  sake  of  convenience,  lux 
ury,  the  chance  to  spend  more  on  pleas 
ure,  freedom  to  go  and  come  as  they 
please !  There  is  nothing  sadder  in 
modern  life  than  this  exchange  of  homes 
for  lodgings,  under  the  fatal  delusion 
that  the  home  confines  and  the  lodging 
liberates;  that  the  home  is  commonplace 
162 


Lodgings  and  Homes 

and  the  lodging  full  of  novelty  and  in 
terest;  that  the  home  is  old-fashioned  and 
out  of  date,  and  the  lodging  a  step  for 
ward  in  emancipation;  that  the  home 
means  drudgery  and  the  lodging  leisure; 
that  the  home  involves  anchorage  in  the 
harbor  and  the  lodging  the  free  course 
over  the  open  sea !  To  a  few  men  and 
women  come  those  imperative  commands 
to  give  up  home  and  kindred  for  some 
great  service  which  must  be  accepted  as 
the  will  of  God;  but  among  all  the  chil 
dren  of  folly  none  are  more  blind  than 
those  who  voluntarily  choose  the  lodging 
instead  of  the  home. 


163 


Love  and  Law 

THE  most  sublime  divination  ever 
made  by  men  is  the  declaration  that 
God  is  Love.  The  audacity  of  it  in  a 
world  devastated  by  sorrow  and  a  so 
ciety  ruled  by  force  is  evidence  of  its 
truth.  Through  clouds  of  ignorance, 
amid  cries  of  anguish,  in  the  presence  of 
victorious  crimes  and  enthroned  and 
sceptered  wrongs,  compassed  about  with 
apparently  overwhelming  evidences  of 
moral  chaos  and  spiritual  wreck,  the  ge 
nius  that  is  in  the  soul  of  the  race  flashed 
a  sudden  light  on  the  very  heart  of  the 
mystery  and  found  Love  seated  there, 
immortal,  invincible,  omnipotent.  Since 
that  heroic  word  of  faith  was  spoken 
there  have  been  two  thousand  years  of 
strife  and  misery  and  confusion;  society 
has  been  shaken  again  and  again  by  de 
structive  forces  and  rebuilt  only  to  be 
wrecked  afresh;  the  old  order  has  passed 
164 


Love  and  Law 

and  the  new  has  come  only  to  become  old 
itself  and  yield  to  the  pressure  of  the 
later  need;  the  world  has  been  lifted  for 
the  first  time  into  a  light  of  knowledge 
of  its  races  and  their  conditions  well-nigh 
complete;  and  men  are  appalled  by  the 
work  to  be  done  before  human  conditions 
are  made  wholesome  and  safe. 

Through  all  the  confusion  without  and 
within,  the  vision  of  Love  enthroned  has 
never  faded  from  the  thought  and  faith 
of  the  spiritually-minded.  Not  only  have 
all  other  explanations  of  the  universe 
seemed  incredible,  but  to  reason  itself 
have  come  great  confirmations  of  the 
truth  of  the  sublime  divination,  as 
through  clouds  and  darkness  science  has 
discerned  the  outlines  of  an  order,  not 
fixed  and  abitrary,  but  vital,  ascending, 
passing  on  through  the  passion  for  self 
to  the  passion  for  others,  and  predicting 
the  other  great  truth  that  love  and  law 
are  spirit  and  method  in  a  sublime  pro 
gression  of  creative  energy. 

The  apparent  antithesis  between  law 
165 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

and  love  has  not  only  led  to  numberless 
confusions  of  thought,  but  is  due  to  a 
confusion  of  thought.  Law  has  been  set 
before  the  mind  of  the  race  as  austere, 
inflexible,  divinely  inexorable;  the  very 
structure  of  the  moral  order,  the  very 
fiber  of  the  moral  nature,  something  so 
august  and  sovereign  that  the  gods  have 
bowed  before  it;  a  force  behind  all  forces 
as  the  Fates  or  Norns  watched  in  deep 
shadows  behind  Zeus  and  Odin,  and 
measured  their  span  of  life  with  relent 
less  fingers.  Love,  on  the  other  hand, 
has  been  pictured  as  a  beautiful  emotion, 
a  divine  impulse,  a  cherishing  tenderness, 
a  yearning  over  men  which  forgot  their 
offenses  in  its  passion  for  helping  them, 
but  lacking  divine  rigor  of  righteousness. 
Law  commanded,  but  love  persuaded; 
law  punished,  but  love  pardoned;  law  en 
forced  obedience  by  terrible  penalties, 
love  stood  beside  the  culprit  and  bore  the 
penalties  with  him.  Good  men  of  logical 
mind  have  not  only  failed  to  understand 
the  nature  of  Love,  but  have  been  dis- 
166 


Love  and  Law 

trustful  of  its  integrity  and  doubtful  of  its 
power  to  govern. 

There  have  been  a  thousand  misappre 
hensions  of  Love  because  its  lower  have 
been  so  often  mistaken  for  its  higher  man 
ifestations.  Those  who  love  are  often 
blind,  but  Love  is  never  blind;  those  who 
love  are  always  weak  through  ignorance, 
but  Love  is  open-eyed  and  strong.  The 
mother  who  defeats  the  growth  of  her 
child  by  releasing  it  from  a  distasteful 
discipline  is  not  devoted  but  ignorant;  the 
father  who  shields  his  son  from  the  pen 
alties  that  might  arrest  the  downward 
tendency  is  not  tender  but  cruel.  Love 
neither  evades  nor  conceals,  because  it 
seeks  only  the  best,  not  the  easiest  or  the 
most  comfortable  way  for  one  upon 
whom  it  lavishes  its  wealth.  Law  ap 
prehends  the  offender  if  it  discovers  him, 
brings  him  to  the  bar  and  punishes  him. 
It  sees  only  the  deed  and  can  punish  only 
the  doer;  its  vision  and  its  power  are 
wholly  external.  Love  discerns  what  is 
in  the  heart,  commands  the  offender  to 
167 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

confess  the  offense  which  is  still  undis 
covered,  because  by  confession  alone  can 
the  spirit  be  set  right;  forces  the  sinner 
whom  it  loves  into  the  hands  of  law, 
stands  beside  him  in  the  dock,  bears  with 
him  the  awful  words  of  judgment,  and 
goes  with  him  to  the  prison  which  is  the 
only  way  back  to  honor  and  peace.  Be 
fore  law  moved,  Love  saw  the  offense 
and  gathered  its  awful  sternness;  after 
law  has  forgotten,  Love  bears  the  dis 
grace  and  carries  the  badge  of  shame  and 
endures  because  it  punishes  only  to  save. 
Law  takes  the  culprit  to  the  cell  and  locks 
the  door,  Love  goes  into  prison  and 
shares  the  humiliation  and  misery. 

For  if  Love  is  the  most  beautiful  thing 
in  the  world,  it  is  also  the  most  terrible; 
God  is  Love  because  in  his  presence  no 
evil  can  live;  to  all  who  are  out  of  right 
relation  with  him  he  is  a  consuming  fire. 
Hell,  whatever  form  it  take,  is  not  the 
measure  of  his  wrath,  but  of  his  passion 
for  purity;  not  the  process  by  which  he 
punishes,  but  by  which  he  purifies.  Even 
168 


Love  and  Law 

if  it  were  only  a  place  of  torment  he  must 
be  in  it,  for  wherever  the  spirits  of  men 
cry  out  unconsciously  in  the  bitterness  of 
misdirected  energy,  lost  opportunity,  in 
fidelity  to  the  highest  in  them,  there  he 
must  be;  and  where  he  is,  there  may  be 
suffering  but  there  cannot  be  the  torment 
of  despair.  Law  regulates  the  conduct, 
but  Love  cleanses  the  very  springs  of  be 
ing;  law  punishes,  but  Love  compels  the 
rebuilding  of  the  nature.  The  return  to 
life  is  often  far  more  painful  than  death; 
and  the  power  which  banishes  death  im 
poses  the  agony  of  rebirth.  Love  cannot 
pause  until  it  has  brought  out  the  highest 
nobility  in  the  spirit  to  which  it  gives 
itself;  cannot  rest  until  it  has  made  final 
happiness  sure  by  perfect  purification: 

"  Love  is  incompatible 
With  falsehood, —  purifies,  assimilates 
All  other  passions  to  itself." 

Because  God  is  Love  the  universe  must 
finally  be  cleansed  to  its  outermost  edge ; 
because  he  loves  men,  there  must  come 
169 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

the  suffering,  denial,  punishment,  which 
constitute  the  education  of  the  spirit  into 
freedom  and  power. 

If  a  man  would  live  at  ease,  let  him 
beware  of  Love.  If  he  loves  a  country, 
it  may  call  him  suddenly  to  hardship  and 
death;  if  he  love  Art,  it  will  set  him 
heart-breaking  lessons  of  trial  and  self- 
surrender;  if  he  love  Truth,  it  will  call 
him  to  part  company  with  his  friend;  if 
he  love  men,  their  sorrows  will  sit  by  his 
fire  and  shadow  its  brightness ;  if  he  love 
some  other  soul  as  the  life  of  his  life,  he 
must  put  his  happiness  at  the  hazard  of 
every  day's  chances  of  life  and  death;  if 
he  give  himself  to  some  great  devotion, 
he  must  be  ready  to  be  searched  through 
and  through  as  by  fingers  of  fire,  to  be 
called  higher  and  higher  by  a  voice  which 
takes  no  heed  of  obstacles,  to  live  day 
by  day  in  the  presence  of  an  ideal  which 
accepts  nothing  less  perfect  than  itself. 

For  Love  is  a  more  terrible  master 
than  law,  and  they  who  follow  must 
stand  ready  to  strip  themselves  of  all 
170 


Love  and  Law 

lesser  possessions.  Dante  looked  at  the 
terrors  of  Hell  and  heard  the  groans  of 
Purgatory  before  he  found  Beatrice  wait 
ing  to  walk  beside  him  in  the  ineffable 
sweetness  and  peace  of  Paradise;  for  the 
keys  of  the  heavenly  place  were  in  the 
hands  of  Love. 


171 


The  Best  Service 

MARCUS  AURELIUS,  who  had 
many  serious  things  to  say  about 
the  most  serious  crises  in  life,  and  whose 
high  virtue  and  loyalty  to  noble  ideals  of 
duty  have  reinforced  and  strengthened 
some  of  the  best  men  and  women  in  all 
subsequent  ages,  had  much  to  say  also 
along  the  lines  of  the  every-day  practice 
of  humble  virtues;  for  he  was  eminently 
a  wise  man  and  knew  that  greatness  is 
built  up,  not  by  single  efforts  in  striking 
crises,  but  by  the  repetition  of  small  acts 
in  every-day  experiences.  He  wrote: 
"  Begin  the  morning  by  saying  to  thyself, 
I  shall  meet  with  the  busybody,  the  un 
grateful,  arrogant,  deceitful,  envious,  un 
social.  All  these  things  happen  to  them 
by  reason  of  their  ignorance  of  what  is 
good  and  evil.  But  I,  who  have  seen  the 
nature  of  the  good  that  it  is  beautiful, 
and  of  the  bad  that  it  is  ugly,  and  the 
172 


The  Best  Service 

nature  of  him  who  does  wrong,  that  it  is 
akin  to  me,  not  only  of  the  same  blood  or 
seed,  but  that  it  participates  in  the  same 
intelligence  and  the  same  portion  of  the 
divinity,  I  can  neither  be  injured  by  any 
of  them,  for  no  one  can  fix  on  me  what 
is  ugly,  nor  can  I  be  angry  with  my  kins 
man,  nor  hate  him." 

This  is  a  paragraph  from  what  might 
be  called  the  working  philosophy  of  an 
independent  and  gracious  life  —  the  life 
of  the  man  or  woman  who  meets  freely 
the  disagreeable  things  of  the  world,  the 
ungracious,  repellent,  and  mean  persons 
of  whom  society  contains  so  many,  but 
refuses  to  be  affected  by  them.  It  is  a 
part  of  a  gracious  and  beautiful  life  to 
turn  the  edge  of  gossip,  of  cynicism,  of 
envy,  and  of  hatred  by  keeping  resolutely 
out  of  the  mood  in  which  these  motives 
and  feelings  are  possible.  The  busybody 
who  has  evil  things  to  hint  and  base 
things  to  tell  of  others  succumbs  to  the 
rebuke  of  silence,  and  the  stream  of  mis 
representation  dries  up  in  the  atmosphere 
173 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

of  unspoken  condemnation.  The  en 
vious  find  the  air  which  surrounds  a  gen 
erous  soul  uncongenial,  and  the  ungrate 
ful  and  arrogant  are  driven  back  upon 
themselves  in  the  presence  of  those  to 
whom  gratitude,  humility,  and  generosity 
of  judgment  are  habitual.  One  may  go 
through  life  almost  silent  and  yet  change 
the  atmosphere  of  the  road  along  which 
he  travels;  for  to  express  one's  nature 
it  is  often  unnecessary  to  speak.  Kind 
ness,  generosity,  and  a  spirit  of  unselfish 
ness  escape  from  some  men  and  women 
in  their  most  silent  moods  and  pervade 
the  places  in  which  they  are.  It  is  mat 
ter  of  no  consequence  to  us  that  those 
about  us  are  ungenerous,  envious,  and 
bearers  of  false  tales.  There  is  no  rea 
son  why  we  should  descend  from  the  hill 
sides  on  which  we  live  into  the  swamp 
because  other  men  and  women  like  the 
miasma.  No  man  need  be  ignoble  in  this 
world  because  the  world  is  full  of  igno 
ble  people;  for,  as  Marcus  Aurelius 
points  out,  those  who  love  the  higher 
174 


The  Best  Service 

things  love  them  because  they  have  seen 
how  beautiful  they  are,  and  those  who 
stand  for  the  baser  things  stand  for  them 
because  they  have  not  seen  their  ugliness. 
The  man  who  looks  at  a  beautiful  view 
from  the  side  of  a  mountain  ought  to  be 
very  tender  of  the  blind  man  who  finds 
nothing  but  the  roughness  of  the  road 
and  the  bitterness  of  his  lack  of  vision. 
There  are  many  people  to  whom  life  is 
mean  and  small  because  they  have  never 
seen  the  nobler  side  of  it.  Such  men  and 
women  are  to  be  pitied  even  more  than 
they  are  to  be  condemned,  and  the  way  to 
serve  them  is  to  open  their  eyes. 

The  eyes  of  the  blind  are  never  opened 
by  violence,  and  the  best  way  to  persuade 
other  men  to  cease  bearing  tales,  using 
envious  speech,  and  forgetting  the  debt 
of  gratitude  is  to  show  forth  day  by 
day  the  beauty  of  appreciative  speech,  of 
generous  recognition,  and  of  that  kindly 
interpretation  which  puts  the  best  light 
on  character  and  deeds.  If  it  be  true 
that  a  good  deed  shines  like  a  light  in 
175 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

the  world,  it  is  much  more  true  that  a 
beautiful  character  is  like  a  beacon;  it 
not  only  illuminates,  but  it  also  warns  and 
guides.  It  shines  brightest  when  the 
clouds  are  black  about  it  and  the  earth 
is  hidden  from  view  by  the  darkness. 
The  most  profound  influence  exercised  by 
the  loving  and  the  devoted  is  uncon 
sciously  put  forth.  They  serve  others 
when  they  are  unaware  that  any  virtue 
passes  from  the  hem  of  their  garments; 
and  the  chief  concern  of  a  man  or  woman 
should  be,  not  to  correct  others,  but  to 
keep  the  stream  of  influence  which  flows 
from  them  pure  at  the  source;  for  an 
example  is  ten  times  more  persuasive  and 
searching  than  any  reproof  or  direct  sug 
gestion.  In  a  corrupt  society  a  good  man 
or  a  pure  woman  stands  out  with  mar 
velous  brightness,  and  the  worse  society 
society  is,  the  less  excuse  is  there  for  cor 
ruption.  Those  who  charge  their  faults 
upon  their  environment,  and  who  miti 
gate  their  judgment  of  themselves  by  the 
reflection  that  the  standards  of  those 
176 


The  Best  Service 

about  them  are  low,  fail  to  see  that  they 
are  passing  the  severest  condemnation 
upon  themselves.  To  have  seen  the 
light  and  not  to  live  by  it  is  to  sin,  not 
only  against  the  light,  but  against  one's 
less  fortunate  fellows.  It  is  nothing  to 
us  that  others  are  envious,  malicious,  de 
ceitful,  and  ungrateful;  our  concern  is 
with  ourselves.  So  long  as  we  are  gen 
erous,  appreciative,  truth-loving,  we  may 
let  the  world  take  care  of  itself;  we  shall 
have  rendered  it  our  best  service. 


177 


A  Secret  of  Youth 

ONE  of  the  good  signs  of  the  time  is 
the  fact  that  people  no  longer  con 
ceive  of  life  as  arbitrarily  divided  into 
periods  of  time.  The  women  of  forty 
to-day  do  not  follow  the  habit  of  their 
ancestors,  and  put  on  caps  and  take  to 
knitting,  under  the  impression  that  hence 
forth  for  them  there  is  laid  up  nothing 
but  the  profound  respect  which  children 
ought  to  pay  to  advanced  years,  peace 
after  toil,  and  the  making  of  an  endless 
series  of  small  garments  for  newcomers. 
A  recent  writer  in  The  Atlantic  expressed 
the  hope  that  some  day  the  dear  old  lady 
of  silvery  hair  and  quiet  gown  and  the 
ripening  and  mellow  charm  of  advancing 
years  will  return  to  us.  Something  un 
doubtedly  has  been  lost,  but  very  much 
has  been  gained.  The  old-age  limit  was 
absurdly  premature  from  Shakespeare's 
time  to  the  time  of  our  immediate  ances- 
178 


A  Secret  of  Youth 

tors.  Emerson  somewhere  recalls  the  re 
mark  of  an  old  gentleman  who  said  that 
he  had  been  born  at  a  most  unlucky  time 
of  transition;  when  he  was  a  boy  the 
greatest  respect  was  paid  to  old  age,  and 
now  that  he  was  old  the  greatest  respect 
was  paid  to  children. 

There  has  been  a  great  extension  of 
the  time  of  activity  for  men  and  women 
since  the  middle  of  the  last  century.  Peo 
ple  are  no  longer  ashamed  to  be  about 
and  doing  their  work  at  eighty.  They 
no  longer  feel  compelled  to  apologize  to 
their  young  descendants  for  standing  in 
the  way.  They  have  discovered  that  old 
age  is  a  relative  term,  and  that,  unless 
serious  physical  disablements  or  crippling 
disease  come,  at  eighty  one  may  be  ac 
tive  without  being  disrespectful  to  the 
younger  generation  or  lacking  in  respect 
for  one's  own  contemporaries.  There 
was  a  great  deal  of  truth  in  the  statement 
of  a  French  writer  that  the  gods  made  us 
all  immortal  and  that  old  age  is  a  volun 
tary  matter. 

179 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

Age  is  largely  a  matter  of  habit;  and 
most  people  who  grow  old,  in  the  sense 
of  losing  their  interest  and  their  working 
power,  fall  insensibly  into  the  slough  of 
inactivity  because  they  do  not  understand 
how  to  feed  their  spirit  and  nourish  their 
bodies.  Youth  is  not  a  matter  of  years; 
it  is  a  matter  of  spiritual  condition.  It 
does  not  consist  simply  in  young  muscles 
and  arteries  that  have  not  yet  begun  to 
harden;  the  root  of  it  is  freshness  of  feel 
ing,  vitality  of  interest,  and  joy  in  one's 
work.  Men  and  women  become  old  by 
involuntary  mental  process;  by  thinking 
themselves  old.  They  dwell  so  much  on 
the  mortal  side  that  they  forget  their  im 
mortality.  Disuse  of  muscle  in  any  part 
of  the  body  speedily  means  stagnation 
and  hardening;  giving  up  interest  in  life, 
going  into  voluntary  retirement,  coming 
to  anchor  with  the  intention  of  never  put 
ting  to  sea  again,  is  insensibly  followed 
by  spiritual  and  physical  acceptance  of  de 
clining  energy  and  fading  interests.  The 
mortal  must  be  kept  alive  by  the  immor- 
180 


A  Secret  of  Youth 

tal;  the  body  kept  young  by  the  mind; 
the  mind  fed  by  constant  contact  with 
fresh  ideas.  The  conservatism  of  old 
age  lies  chiefly  in  closing  the  doors,  shut 
ting  the  windows,  and  barring  the  house 
against  the  new  ideas  of  a  new  time.  It 
has  come  to  be  almost  a  tradition  that 
old  people  are  pessimists,  bewailing  the 
degeneracy  of  the  later  times,  and  hold 
ing  constantly  before  the  eyes  of  their 
younger  contemporaries  the  charm  and 
beauty  of  a  past  age.  A  little  intimate 
knowledge  of  history  speedily  cures  all 
this.  If  one  is  not  willing  to  keep  up 
his  interest  in  acting  history,  if  one  has 
an  open  door  only  for  old  friends  and 
never  makes  new  ones,  if  one  has  no  com 
panionship  with  the  later  world  and  the 
rising  ideas  which  are  always  coming  into 
it,  his  house  becomes  desolate  and  he 
falls  into  melancholy.  When  the  years 
begin  to  multiply,  one  must  fasten  back 
the  shutters  and  leave  the  latch-string 
out;  one  must  insist  on  his  immortality. 
Elderly  people  must  keep  at  the  head 
181 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

of  the  procession  in  their  hospitality  to 
new  ideas. 

Variety  and  charm  and  interest  lie  in 
the  preservation  of  freshness.  Robert 
Louis  Stevenson  wrote :  "  Cling  to  your 
youth.  It  is  the  artist's  stock  in  trade. 
Do  not  give  up  that  you  are  aging,  and 
you  won't  age."  In  this  familiar  and 
homely  advice  is  hidden  the  secret  of 
the  artist's  power  and  charm.  He  never 
grows  old;  things  never  become  common 
place  to  him ;  the  colors  do  not  fade.  As 
a  matter  of  fact,  they  never  fade;  it  is 
the  perceptions  which  become  duller,  the 
interest  which  becomes  less  keen.  A 
good  many  men  and  women  have  discov 
ered  that  it  is  a  good  thing  to  associate 
intimately  with  persons  younger  than 
themselves.  This  is  one  refuge  against 
old  age,  but  the  real  refuge  is  within.  It 
is  the  assertion  of  one's  immortality,  the 
consciousness  day  by  day,  in  all  relations 
and  occupations,  that  one  is  going  for 
ward  and  not  backward;  that  the  world, 
which  grows  sadder  because  one's  com- 
182 


A  Secret  of  Youth 

panions  go  out  of  it,  is  growing  brighter 
because  one  is  pushing  toward  the  dawn 
and  not  toward  the  sunset.  There  is  a 
great  mass  of  misleading  and  cynical  phi 
losophy  about  old  age.  Poetry  is  full  of 
images  of  disenchantment  created  for  the 
greater  part  by  disenchanted  men.  There 
was  a  profound  truth  in  the  old  Greek 
picture  of  the  spirit  beginning  its  life  in  a 
strongly  built  house,  protected  from  all 
the  elements;  finding  presently  that  the 
house  begins  to  be  less  secure;  discover 
ing  at  last  that  it  begins  to  crumble,  and 
at  the  end  that  it  falls  in  ruins  —  only  to 
leave  the  man  free  under  the  open  sky. 


183 


Make  the  Time  You  Want 

IF  the  census-takers  went  into  such 
matters,  the  return  of  men  and 
women  who  are  anxious  to  do  certain 
things  but  "  cannot  find  the  time  "  would 
run  into  large  figures.  There  is  no  more 
prevalent  or  pathetic  illusion,  no  more 
delusive  excuse  and  evasion,  than  inabil 
ity  to  find  time  to  do  real  things  in  a 
strong  way.  For  time  is  not  found;  it  is 
made.  What  we  call  time,  meaning  the 
flight  of  hours  recorded  by  the  clock,  is 
simply  the  raw  material  of  which  time  is 
made.  It  is  mere  duration;  time  is  dura 
tion  turned  to  account,  used,  directed  to 
definite  ends.  We  make  all  the  time  we 
really  use,  and  we  make  it  by  using  it.  It 
is  a  fallacy  that  men  kill  time;  they  can 
not  kill  what  does  not  exist  for  them; 
they  simply  miss  the  opportunity  to  make 
time;  they  kill  their  chances.  In  vaca 
tion  days  busy  people  rest  by  not  making 
time;  they  hang  up  the  receiver,  so  to 
184 


Make  the  Time  You  Want 

speak,  and  no  call  of  work  or  duty  reaches 
them;  they  shut  off  connection  with  the 
raw  material  which,  in  working  hours, 
runs  through  their  looms  and  becomes 
time;  that  is,  duration  made  significant, 
fruitful,  intelligent,  beautiful. 

Races  that  have  made  no  progress  for 
centuries  are  often  spoken  of  as  old  races, 
and  men  and  women  whose  years  have 
been  many  and  idle  are  described  as  old 
people;  with  the  implication  that  age  of 
itself  entitles  races  and  people  to  a  certain 
authority.  The  feebleness  that  comes 
with  the  burden  of  years  demands  the  ut 
most  courtesy  and  the  tenderest  care;  but 
there  is  nothing  in  age  of  itself  which  car 
ries  authority  or  enforces  respect.  Mere 
duration  has  nothing  in  it  that  claims  the 
reverence  of  men;  time,  which  is  dura 
tion  made  significant  and  fruitful,  alone 
wears  the  crown  of  that  authority  which 
rests  on  ripe  thought,  deep  experience,  in 
ward  growth.  A  man  may  have  length 
of  years  and  be  as  devoid  of  wisdom  as 
a  child  of  yesterday;  a  race  may  have 
'185 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

counted  thirty  centuries  and  remain  where 
it  was  when  the  years  began  to  fly  over 
it,  as  the  birds  pass  over  the  fields  and 
leave  no  trace  behind.  It  is  duration 
transformed  into  time  that  counts. 

There  is  an  abundance  of  this  raw 
material  if  one  knows  how  to  change  it 
into  time.  This  is  not  accomplished  by 
the  rattle  of  machinery,  by  rushing  about 
from  point  to  point  as  if  one  had  great 
undertakings  on  all  sides,  by  breathless 
haste  and  many  lamentations  that  there 
is  no  chance  to  get  things  done;  that  is 
as  much  a  waste  of  the  opportunity  of 
making  time  as  sitting  idle  and,  with 
folded  hands,  letting  the  days  slip  down 
the  western  slope  of  the  sky  without  care 
or  thought.  It  is  as  easy  to  waste  the 
raw  material  of  time  noisily  as  silently; 
to  be  idle  in  a  tumult  as  in  a  dream. 
Some  of  the  most  useless  people  in  the 
world  are  the  most  vociferous;  some  of 
the  greatest  makers  of  time  are  the  quiet 
est.  To  turn  duration  into  time  and  not 
let  the  threads  run  into  a  meaningless 
1 86 


Make  the  Time  You  Want 

tangle,  one  must  have  a  design,  some  skill 
in  working,  and  a  steady  purpose.  A 
host  of  those  whose  looms  never  start 
have  a  mass  of  designs  in  mind;  the  trou 
ble  is  that  they  never  decide  which  pleases 
or  interests  them  most.  Another  host 
start  a  design  only  to  tire  of  it  and  begin 
another.  And  a  still  larger  number  let 
things  go  as  they  may,  and  "  take  what 
comes."  Nothing  comes,  because  every 
thing  must  be  made;  that  is  the  beneficent 
law  of  life.  Nature  takes  care  that  no 
man  gets  morally,  intellectually,  or  spirit 
ually  rich  by  sitting  still  and  letting  things 
pour  into  his  lap.  Wealth  in  these  im 
perishable  things  is  a  matter  of  time  for 
every  man  and  woman;  and  time  is  not 
given ;  it  must  be  made.  If  you  want  time 
for  great  tasks,  for  fine  growth,  for  beau 
tiful  accomplishments,  for  rich  resources 
of  all  sorts,  do  not  wait  for  it;  it  will 
never  come  to  you;  make  it  by  selection 
of  design,  concentration  of  effort,  the  vital 
skill  that  is  born  of  devotion,  intelligence, 
putting  one's  heart  into  one's  work. 
187 


A  Tragedy  of  the  Good 

THE  figure  of  a  man  appointed  to 
die  on  a  certain  day  and  begging 
for  a  little  more  time  was  very  familiar 
to  the  mediaeval  imagination,  and  ap 
peared  in  many  variations  of  a  story 
whose  pathos  and  meaning  even  the  way 
faring  man  could  not  fail  to  read.  In 
our  day  thoughtful  men  pray,  not  to  be 
saved  from  death,  but  from  what  many 
call  life.  They  are  so  overloaded  with 
responsibilities  and  compassed  about  with 
what  they  regard  as  duties  that  they  have 
become  mere  automatic  machines.  They 
keep  their  engagements  and  do  the  work 
assigned  them  on  the  hour;  they  are  mod 
els  of  punctuality  and  often  miracles  of 
executive  fidelity;  but  they  are  selling 
their  birthright  of  time  as  if  they  held 
it  by  absolute  ownership  and  not  in  trust. 
A  great  deal  has  been  said  of  late  about 
the  absence  of  the  sense  of  responsibility 
1 88 


A  Tragedy  of  the  Good 

in  those  who  are  trustees  charged  with 
the  care  of  other  people's  interests,  and  of 
the  tendency  of  men  who  control  great 
properties  to  give  away  that  which  is  not 
their  own.  This  is  precisely  what  a  host 
of  good  men  and  women  are  doing 
through  a  mistaken  notion  that  life  is 
wholly  a  matter  of  action,  and  that  the 
measure  of  service  is  the  number  of  ac 
tivities  to  which  one  gives  a  hand.  It 
would  be  just  as  rational  to  say  that  the 
wisest  man  is  he  who  has  read  the  great 
est  number  of  books,  and  the  most  learned 
woman  she  who  has  taken  the  greatest 
number  of  post-graduate  courses;  when, 
as  a  matter  of  common  knowledge,  the 
omnivorous  reader  and  the  omnivorous 
taker  of  special  courses  are  never  wise 
and  seldom  educated. 

It  is  very  easy  to  drift  into  devouring 
activities,  and  many  discover  too  late  that 
they  have  mortgaged  themselves  for  more 
than  their  value;  they  have  pledged  their 
entire  capital  of  strength,  time,  and  abil 
ity,  and  have  parted  with  their  most 
189 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

precious  possession  —  the  power  of  in 
ward  growth.  To  such  men  and  women, 
depleted  by  the  incessant  drain  on  re 
sources  which  they  have  no  chance  to 
build  up,  and  deadened  in  body  and  soul 
by  the  merciless  strain  of  unrelieved  ac 
tivity,  the  prayer  for  time  becomes  a  cry 
of  acute  suffering.  Those  who  are  con 
tent  to  be  machines  and  are  satisfied  with 
"  keeping  things  going  "  will  not  under 
stand  this  experience;  but  many  heroic 
workers  know  the  sense  of  utter  failure 
which  comes  in  the  midst  of  successful 
work;  the  longing  of  the  soul  for  time 
to  be  by  itself  with  nature  and  with  God; 
to  get  the  meaning  out  of  experience  by 
meditating  upon  it;  to  lie  fallow  until  the 
earlier  and  the  later  rains  have  fertilized 
the  soil  to  the  point  where  life  is  ready 
to  rise  out  of  it  in  a  great  rush  of  joyous 
energy. 

Men  were  not  made  to  become  ma 
chines;  they  were  made  living  creatures, 
and  they  need  the  nourishment  of  reflec 
tion,  observation,  reading,  leisure,  pleas- 
190 


A  Tragedy  of  the  Good 

ure.  The  time  that  comes  to  them  is  a 
gift  from  God;  they  are  to  make  free 
use  of  it,  but  they  can  neither  sell  it  nor 
give  it  away.  They  must  enrich  it,  mul 
tiply  its  earning  power,  put  it  out  at  in 
terest;  they  cannot  4  divide  it  between  a 
number  of  beneficiaries  and  have  done 
with  it.  It  is  for  the  use  of  their  souls 
as  well  as  of  their  brains  and  hands;  it 
belongs  to  the  Giver,  and  it  must  be  used 
subject  to  the  condition  which  He  im 
poses.  To  work  so  hard  that  one  has 
no  time  to  think  of  Him  is  a  tragic  folly, 
no  matter  how  honorable  the  work  may 
be;  to  give  one's  self  so  entirely  to  ac 
tivities  that  one  has  no  time  for  his  soul, 
no  leisure  for  inward  growth,  no  oppor 
tunity  to  let  the  springs  of  life  fill  and 
fertilize  the  spirit,  is  to  make  a  dismal 
failure  of  life,  no  matter  how  unselfish 
the  activities  may  be.  In  this  world  men 
are  held  as  rigidly  responsible  for  the 
use  of  good  sense,  wise  judgment,  clear 
intelligence,  as  for  the  moral  qualities 
of  their  actions.  Their  blunders  and  fol- 
191 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

lies  are  punished  as  certainly  as  their 
sins.  The  man  who  makes  a  machine 
of  himself  by  giving  to  activity  the  por 
tion  of  time  which  belongs  to  his  soul 
becomes  as  metallic  and  barren  as  the 
selfish  drudge;  the  woman  whose  days 
are  unbroken  successions  of  engagements 
loses  the  finer  quality,  the  higher  power, 
of  her  nature,  as  inevitably  as  if  she  were 
given  up  to  frivolity.  There  are  trag 
edies  of  the  good  as  well  as  of  the  bad; 
there  are  failures  among  those  who  mean 
well,  as  among  those  who  mean  ill.  The 
man  who  sells  his  birthright  for  a  good 
cause  sells  it  just  as  truly  as  he  who  parts 
with  it  for  a  mess  of  pottage;  and  there 
are  few  things  more  pitiful  than  a  man 
become  such  a  slave  to  good  works  that 
he  starves  in  the  midst  of  plenty. 


192 


Simplicity  of  Life 

THOSE  who  read  the  daily  news 
papers,  monthly  magazines,  and 
current  books  detached  from  the  older  lit 
erature,  the  earlier  histories,  and  the  rec 
ords  in  other  forms  of  the  past,  must 
feel  that  this  is  the  worst  of  all  possible 
times,  and  that  the  whole  world  is  rapidly 
going  to  the  bad.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
looking  at  the  situation  in  the  perspective 
of  history,  and  taking  all  sides  of  life  into 
consideration,  there  probably  never  was 
a  more  humane,  generous,  and  open- 
hearted  period  than  the  present.  The 
age  does  not  fundamentally  differ,  except 
in  the  scale  on  which  things  are  done, 
from  the  ages  which  preceded  it,  and 
where  it  differs  it  generally  registers  an 
advance.  One  radical  difference  between 
this  period  and  earlier  periods  is  in  the 
extension  and  thoroughness  of  our  knowl 
edge  of  social  conditions.  We  know  the 
193 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

world  with  a  minuteness  and  accuracy  of 
which  our  forefathers  did  not  dream. 
We  know  our  own  country  almost  as 
familiarly  as  they  used  to  know  their 
towns.  We  know  social  conditions  al 
most  as  well  as  they  knew  family  condi 
tions.  The  result  is  that  we  are  con 
fronted  by  a  host  of  problems  which  are 
neither  new  nor  more  numerous  than  the 
problems  of  earlier  times,  but  which,  in 
their  extent  and  fundamental  character, 
are  brought  into  clear  light  for  the  first 
time. 

One  of  the  prime  difficulties  of  modern 
life  is  its  complexity.  In  this  respect  it 
stands  in  striking  contrast  to  many  pre 
ceding  ages.  But  complexity  of  condi 
tion  is  a  very  different  matter  from  com 
plexity  of  mind.  It  is  a  great  mistake 
to  imagine  that  the  two  are  synonymous ; 
that  simple  conditions  necessarily  create 
the  simple  life,  and  that  complex  condi 
tions  create  complex  habits  of  life.  As 
a  matter  of  fact,  the  simple  life  is  inward, 
not  outward;  it  is  a  matter  of  the  spirit, 
194 


Simplicity  of  Life 

and  only  to  a  limited  extent  a  matter  of 
outward  conditions  and  habits.  It  can 
be  achieved  as  easily  and  it  has  been 
lived  as  nobly  in  palaces  as  in  the  most 
unpretentious  and  obscure  homes.  There 
has  probably  never  been  a  more  conspicu 
ous  example  of  the  simple  life  than  that 
which  was  furnished  by  a  Roman  Em 
peror;  and  any  one  who  has  a  large 
knowledge  of  men  knows  how  often  the 
complex  life  —  that  is  to  say,  the  life  of 
confusion  —  is  led  by  people  of  the  great 
est  obscurity  and  the  smallest  means. 

No  man  or  woman  need  live  a  com 
plex  life  because  the  age  is  complex. 
Confusion  of  thought  is  an  inward  con 
dition,  not  the  result  of  outward  circum 
stances.  An  ignorant  man  is  perplexed 
and  confused,  and,  if  he  has  imagination, 
almost  overpowered,  by  the  immense 
number  of  articles  in  a  single  room  in  a 
museum;  the  curator,  on  the  other  hand, 
is  perfectly  at  home  in  the  whole  collec 
tion  because  the  lines  of  his  knowledge 
run  through  the  vast  space  and  range  the 
195 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

myriad  objects  in  clear  and  definite  or 
der.  That  they  are  numbered  by  the 
thousands  is  of  no  possible  consequence 
when  one  understands  where  to  place 
them  and  what  they  signify.  The  New 
York  Medical  Journal  prints  a  very  in 
teresting  article  by  Dr.  Clement  A.  Pen- 
rose,  of  Baltimore,  on  a  class  whom  this 
physician  calls  the  "mind-weary;"  peo 
ple  who  have  lost  the  faculty  of  thinking 
for  themselves,  or  the  desire  to  do  so, 
and  are  looking  about  for  some  ready- 
made  remedy  for  an  inward  condition, 
some  outward  path  as  a  means  of  escape 
from  intellectual  confusion.  "  How 
many  thousands  of  these  poor,  mind- 
weary  wretches  are  on  the  lookout  for 
some  simple,  plausible,  easy  solution  of 
the  problems  of  life  that  will  get  them 
out  of  all  its  responsibility!  "  Nothing 
exhausts  the  mind  like  confusion;  and 
there  are  vast  numbers  of  men  and 
women  who  are  suffering  to-day  from 
weariness  of  mind  because  they  lack  or 
ganizing  ideas  of  life.  This  is  the  ex- 
196 


Simplicity  of  Life 

planation  for  the  singular  prosperity  of 
quacks  and  spiritual  pretenders  of  all 
sorts,  and  for  the  flourishing  of  occult 
ism,  which  always  reappears  when  men 
lose  their  grip  on  clear,  definite,  and 
powerful  religious  convictions.  Instead 
of  convents  and  monasteries,  society  is 
full  to-day  of  all  kinds  of  refuges  from 
the  weariness  of  life  and  from  its  per 
plexities  and  cares;  shelters  devised  some 
times  by  half-educated,  well-meaning  en 
thusiasts,  sometimes  by  persons  of  un 
usual  clairvoyant  or  hypnotic  gifts,  who 
start  honestly  and  then  become  humbugs 
when  they  discover  the  financial  possibili 
ties  of  their  unusual  gift,  or  by  out-and- 
out  deceivers  and  beguilers  who  under 
stand  how  to  prey  upon  the  credulous, 
and  who  know  how  easy  it  is  to  collect 
a  crowd  if  one  will  only  stand  and  look 
steadfastly  into  the  sky. 

The  New  York  Tribune,  in  comment 
ing  on  Dr.   Penrose's  paper,   says  very 
truly   that   many   people    are    struggling 
vainly  to  piece  together  into  a  rational 
197 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

system  the  alleged  discoveries  of  psy 
chology  and  medicine;  that  they  are 
swamped  by  a  flood  of  unorganized  facts. 
During  the  last  quarter  of  a  century 
information  of  all  sorts  touching  the 
structure  of  the  universe  and  the  organ 
ization  of  the  human  spirit  has  rolled  in 
like  a  tide;  new  vistas  of  knowledge  have 
opened  up  on  all  sides;  popular  reports 
of  every  form  of  religion  are  at  hand; 
every  esoteric  philosophy  has  its  man 
uals;  all  the  arts  and  sciences  are  rep 
resented  on  the  book-shelves  of  the 
libraries  in  a  vast  number  of  easily  writ 
ten  volumes;  political  economy  and 
sociology  are  studied  by  children  barely 
out  of  their  infancy  under  the  tuition  of 
well-meaning  but  half-educated  men  and 
women.  When  one  considers  the  vol 
ume  of  misinformation  now  distributed 
through  society,  and  the  mass  of  ill- 
digested  thinking  to  which  the  average 
man  and  woman  are  exposed,  it  is  aston 
ishing  that  there  is  not  more  brain- 
weariness,  and  that  a  greater  number  of 
198 


Simplicity  of  Life 

people  do  not  fall  prey  to  the  delusions 
of  the  moment — those  easy-going  solu 
tions  of  the  problems  of  life  which  push 
aside  responsibility  and  settle  all  ques 
tions  out  of  hand.  Many  men  and 
many  women  are  bewildered  by  the  num 
ber  of  gates  through  which  they  can  pass 
into  different  fields  of  knowledge,  and 
try  first  one  path  and  then  another,  only 
to  come  back  to  the  point  of  departure 
and  start  afresh,  with  a  constantly  deep 
ening  confusion  of  thought.  They  are 
eager  to  understand  all  the  sciences,  to 
master  the  technique  of  all  the  arts,  to 
know  the  ritual  of  all  religions  and  to 
worship  all  the  gods;  and  the  result  is 
that  they  become  mere  encyclopaedias  of 
popular  misinformation,  but  encyclopae 
dias  without  order,  definition,  accuracy, 
illumination. 

The  remedy  for  this  confusion  is  a 
clear  recognition  that  no  human  being 
can  settle  all  questions,  master  all  knowl 
edge,  or  try  all  experience;  that  every 
man  must  select  the  things  which  belong 
199 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

to  him  and  leave  the  other  things  alone; 
that  to  do  anything  strongly  and  com 
petently  involves  leaving  many  other 
things  undone;  that  before  each  human 
soul  lies  one  path,  and  that  by  keeping 
to  that  path  salvation  is  secured.  One 
definite  and  commanding  idea  of  life, 
resolutely  and  patiently  worked  out  and 
followed,  brings  one  to  wisdom  and 
power,  while  a  great  number  of  ideas 
which  touch  only  the  circumference  of 
one's  experience  bewilder  and  confuse. 
He  who  can  be  efficient  and  fruitful 
if  he  stays  where  he  belongs,  becomes 
a  mere  cumberer  of  the  ground  when 
he  strays  into  places  where  he  has  no 
real  ties.  The  question  for  men  and 
women  to-day  is  not  whether  they  will 
understand  everything  and  use  every 
thing,  but  what  they  shall  resolutely  cut 
off;  it  is  not  a  question  of  taking  things 
on,  but  of  leaving  things  out.  The  ge 
nius  of  the  simple  life  lies  in  accepting  a 
fundamental  conception  of  what  one  is 
here  for.  If  one  has  such  a  conception, 
200 


Simplicity  of  Life 

it  will  impose  order  on  the  outward  con 
fusion,  give  one  peace  in  outward  tur 
moil,  preserve  one  from  the  temptations 
of  a  thousand  voices  calling  tumultuously 
and  discordantly  from  all  quarters,  and 
bring  that  quiet  unfolding,  that  inward 
growth,  which  is  the  business  of  life. 


201 


By-Products  in  Life 

ONE  of  the  prime  sources  of  modern 
wealth  is  the  saving  of  by-products. 
In  the  days  before  science  came  to  the  aid 
of  business  everything  was  sacrificed  to 
turn  out  one  major  product,  and  nobody 
realized  the  enormous  waste  of  materials 
that  went  on  in  almost  every  factory. 
To-day,  as  the  result  of  larger  knowledge 
and  of  more  skillfully  devised  machinery, 
a  thousand  things  which  once  went  to 
the  refuse  heap  are  turned  to  account 
and  made  almost  as  profitable  as  the 
chief  product  of  the  factory.  In  many 
cases  by-products  have  become  so  valua- 
able  that  they  have  been  transformed  into 
major  products,  and  the  scrap-heap  has 
been  converted  into  salable  property. 
A  good  many  people  are  still  going  on 
in  the  old  way  and  conducting  the  busi 
ness  of  life  as  if  only  one  or  two  results 
could  be  secured.  They  set  out  to  be 
202 


By-Products  in  Life 

strong,  and  therefore  they  live  as  if  the 
process  of  getting  strength  excluded  the 
gaining  of  all  the  other  virtues;  in  this 
way  they  throw  away  the  by-products 
and  miss  great  chances  of  wealth.  In 
getting  strength  it  is  easy  to  get  sweet 
ness  as  well.  The  same  process  which 
makes  men  and  women  strong  will  also 
make  them  sweet  if  they  will  bring  intel 
ligence  to  bear  on  what  they  are  doing. 

Many  people  have  a  highly  commend 
able  purpose  to  become  truth-tellers; 
but  because  they  discard  the  by-products 
of  tact  and  sympathy  they  lose  the  kind 
of  prosperity  which  makes  a  man  a  great 
capitalist  for  his  friends  in  time  of  need. 
The  world  is  full  of  people  who  work  so 
hard  to  do  their  duty  that  they  do  noth 
ing  else  and  make  the  friends  of  good 
causes  as  unhappy  as  their  enemies.  The 
by-products  of  duty-doing  are  good  sense, 
feeling  for  others,  and  the  flexibility 
which  arms  high  purpose  and  great  integ 
rity  with  a  contagious  kindness  of  temper. 
In  morals  the  by-products  are  as  produc- 
203 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

tive  of  ease  and  comfort  as  in  business. 
Many  men  and  women  are  persuaded 
that  "  Order  is  Nature's  first  law,"  and 
strive  to  obey  that  law  by  putting  every 
thing  with  which  they  are  concerned  into 
its  place  and  keeping  it  there.  This  is 
the  secret  of  effectiveness  on  a  large 
scale;  it  is  also  one  of  the  secrets  of 
comfortable  living.  Only  the  orderly 
man  or  woman  can  handle  great  affairs 
with  ease  and  despatch  or  be  thoroughly 
comfortable  in  a  life  of  busy  and  many- 
sided  activities.  Unfortunately,  in  be 
coming  orderly  some  people  make  them 
selves  the  rigid  incarnation  of  a  single 
principle,  the  living  embodiment  of  a 
single  method,  and  are  transformed  into 
slaves  instead  of  servants.  Few  people 
are  more  terrible  to  their  associates  than 
those  who  have  imbibed  the  passion  for 
order;  who  cannot  see  anything  out  of 
place  without  internal  misery  and  ex 
ternal  action;  in  whose  hands  the  spirit  of 
a  home  is  sacrificed  for  the  sake  of  an 
immaculately  clean  and  orderly  house; 
204 


By-Products  in  Life 

who  become  so  absorbed  in  pursuing 
method  that  the  spirit  of  any  enterprise 
with  which  they  are  connected  is  often 
throttled.  Order,  like  every  other 
method,  ought  to  be  generously  and  com 
fortably  enforced;  and  one  of  the  by-pro 
ducts  in  making  one's  self  orderly  is  a 
certain  adaptability  to  conditions.  Order 
was  made  for  man,  not  man  for  order; 
and  those  who  are  well  trained  in  keep 
ing  things  in  their  place  will  have  the 
good  sense  and  graciousness  to  allow 
things  to  be  out  of  their  place  when  con 
ditions  make  that  state  of  affairs  either 
excusable  or  necessary.  Like  everything 
else,  order  must  sometimes  yield  to  more 
immediate  necessities. 

There  is  a  still  larger  host  of  people 
who  are  bent  on  being  useful,  no  matter 
what  it  costs  themselves  or  their  friends. 
Now  usefulness  is  the  characteristic  of 
all  people  who  achieve  anything,  either 
in  themselves  or  in  society.  In  an  order 
of  life  which  necessitates  co-operation, 
activity,  and  thoughtfulness — the  quali- 
205 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

ties  which  make  one  useful — to  be  an 
idler  is  to  fail  in  one's  primary  duty. 
But  one  ought  to  be  useful  agreeably  and 
with  a  certain  charity  towards  others. 
The  fact  that  one  drives  one's  self  with 
the  spur  of  conscience  does  not  empower 
one  to  drive  everybody  else.  Many 
excellent  people  go  through  life  like 
Alberich  cracking  a  long  lash  over  the 
heads  of  the  unfortunate  Nibelungen. 
There  are  many  homes  in  which  the 
demon  of  usefulness  drives  out  the  spirit 
of  joyful  consecration  to  work  and  duty, 
and  goodness  is  so  violent  that  it  becomes 
a  kind  of  disorder,  and  virtue  so  aggres 
sive  that  it  takes  on  the  aspect  of 
a  destroying  angel.  In  order  to  be  use 
ful  it  is  not  necessary  to  become  a  slave- 
driver.  The  by-products  of  the  struggle 
to  be  useful  are  patience,  the  spirit  of 
co-operation,  the  habit  of  recognizing 
good  work,  the  desire  to  stimulate  and 
persuade  rather  than  to  goad  and  irritate. 
Blessed  are  the  good  with  whom  it  is 
pleasant  to  live ! 

206 


The  Value  of  Appreciation 

MANY  men  and  women  underesti 
mate  the  value  of  expression;  they 
take  too  many  things  for  granted;  they 
assume  that  their  affection,  or  their  grati 
tude,  or  their  sense  of  obligation,  is  under 
stood  without  words.  Such  people  are 
often  surrounded  by  those  who  are  crav 
ing  some  expression  of  affection,  some 
word  of  approval,  some  kind  of  recogni 
tion.  The  best  work  is  sometimes  done 
with  shut  teeth  and  a  fixed  purpose,  in 
dead  silence,  so  far  as  the  world  is  con 
cerned,  without  a  murmur  of  applause  or 
a  word  of  thank^;  but  this  is  not  the  way 
in  which  work  ought  to  be  done  among 
intelligent  men  and  women,  and  it  is  not 
the  way  in  which,  as  a  rule,  the  best 
work  is  evoked  from  the  greatest  num 
ber  of  people.  The  majority  of  men  and 
women  get  the  best  out  of  themselves 
when  they  are  in  a  congenial  atmos- 
207 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

phere.  This  is  particularly  true  of  those 
finer  kinds  of  work  which  express  indi 
viduality,  quality,  and  personal  gift.  A 
man  may  do  a  piece  of  mechanical  work 
in  arctic  coldness;  he  may  do  it  thor 
oughly  in  the  face  of  distinct  disap 
proval;  but  it  is  very  difficult  to  do  the 
work  into  which  one  puts  his  heart,  and 
which  is  the  expression  of  the  finest  ele 
ments  in  one,  unless  there  is  some  warmth 
in  the  atmosphere,  something  which  sum 
mons  out  of  their  hiding-places  the  most 
delicate  and  beautiful  possibilities  of  one's 
nature.  It  is  true  a  man  like  Dante  can 
do  a  sublime  piece  of  work  with  no  other 
approval  than  his  own  conscience,  with 
no  other  reward  than  his  own  conscious 
ness  of  having  done  his  work  with  a 
man's  integrity  and  an  artist's  thorough 
ness;  but  men  of  Dante's  temperament 
are  few;  and  there  are  a  great  many 
other  kinds  of  work,  as  important  as  that 
which  Dante  did,  which  could  not  possi 
bly  be  done  under  such  conditions. 

It  is  the  duty  of  every  man,  not  only 
208 


The  Value  of  Appreciation 

to  do  his  work  as  thoroughly  as  posible, 
but  to  create  the  atmosphere  in  which 
other  men  and  women  can  do  their  work 
thoroughly  and  well.  It  is  the  duty  of 
every  man,  not  only  to  unfold  his  own 
character  freely  and  completely,  but  to 
create  the  atmosphere  in  which  other 
people  are  able  to  develop  their  best 
qualities.  There  are  hosts  of  men  and 
women  who  depend  absolutely  on  others 
for  their  finest  growth,  who  have  to  be 
drawn  out,  whose  sweetness  and  charm 
never  find  expression  unless  they  are 
evoked  by  warm  affection  or  by  gener 
ous  approval.  The  world  is  full  of 
half-starved  people  whose  emotions  are 
denied  their  legitimate  expression;  who 
are  hungry  for  an  affection  which  they 
often  have  but  the  possession  of  which 
they  do  not  realize  because  it  never  finds 
expression;  who  have  latent  possibilities 
of  achievement  of  a  very  high  order,  but 
whose  possibilities  are  undeveloped  be 
cause  nothing  in  the  air  about  them 
summons  them  forth.  Such  people  need 
209 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

a  summer  atmosphere,  and  they  are  often 
compelled  to  live  in  a  winter  chill. 
Many  of  those  who  diffuse  the  chill  in 
stead  of  the  cheer  are  unconscious  of  the 
influence  for  repression  which  they  put 
forth  simply  from  lack  of  thought  about 
the  delicate  adjustments  of  life.  They 
have  never  studied  themselves,  or  those 
about  them;  and  so  there  are  thousands 
of  homes  that  are  without  cheer,  not  be 
cause  they  are  without  love,  but  because 
they  are  without  the  expression  of  love; 
and  there  are  thousands  of  offices,  work 
shops,  and  school-rooms  that  are  without 
inspiration,  not  because  they  are  lacking 
in  earnestness  or  in  integrity,  but  because 
the  habit  of  recognition  has  never  been 
formed,  and  there  is  none  of  that  spirit 
ual  co-operation  which  not  only  gives  but 
evokes  the  best. 

There  is  in  life  no  more  pathetic  fea 
ture  than  the  hunger  for  a  love  which 
exists  but  never  expresses  itself,  and 
therefore,  so  far  as  comfort,  warmth,  or 
inspiration  is  concerned,  is  as  if  it  were 
210 


The  Value  of  Appreciation 

not.  There  is  a  capital  of  affection  and 
good  intention  in  the  world  sufficient  to 
warm  the  whole  atmosphere,  if  it  were 
used;  but  there  are  hundreds  of  capi 
talists  of  this  kind  who  leave  their  names 
untouched,  and  who  enrich  neither  them 
selves  nor  others  because  they  do  not 
know  how  to  give  currency  to  their 
wealth.  Love  is  not  to  be  hoarded,  but 
to  be  spent.  It  is  great  in  the  exact 
measure  in  which  it  is  given;  it  returns 
in  the  exact  measure  in  which  it  is  sent 
away;  and  society  needs  nothing  to-day 
so  much  as  the  use  of  this  unused  capi 
tal.  If  men  of  integrity  and  good  inten 
tions  in  the  world  of  business  would 
manifest  their  real  feeling  towards  their 
associates  and  their  employees  by  con 
stant  recognition  of  work  well  done,  by 
the  words  spoken  almost  at  random 
which  show  that  a  piece  of  work  is  valued 
and  that  credit  is  rendered  to  the  worker, 
a  large  percentage  of  the  social  unrest 
would  disappear;  for  love  is  the  only 
solvent  of  the  social  problems. 
211 


ON  the  horizon  of  human  thought 
three  great  ideas  rise  from  the  solid 
earth  into  the  clouds  like  vast  mountain 
summits.  For  many  generations,  when 
ever  men  have  lifted  their  eyes  from  the 
little  space  of  ground  on  which  they  were 
working,  they  have  seen  these  sublime 
lifts  of  the  common  soil  skyward.  For, 
dim  and  remote  as  these  reaches  of  up 
land  have  looked,  they  have  somehow 
seemed  to  be  of  the  same  substance  of 
which  human  life  is  compounded  every 
inch  of  common  earth  predicting  the  mass 
and  majesty  of  the  hills.  At  the  begin 
ning  these  distant  peaks  were  so  remote 
that  they  were  almost  indistinguishable 
from  clouds,  so  unsubstantial  and  vision 
ary  did  they  appear — dreams  sent  to  give 
a  sense  of  space  and  range  to  the  dwellers 
in  the  narrow  house  of  life.  As  time 
brought  that  experience  which  is  the  de- 
212 


posit  of  truth  in  the  heart  by  the  process 
of  living,  the  massive  outlines  became 
more  distinct,  and  the  dream  slowly  took 
on  the  aspect  of  reality.  Generation 
after  generation  lifted  its  eyes,  and  the 
vague  forms  drew  nearer  and  wore  more 
familiar  forms,  until  they  have  become 
in  very  truth  the  hills  of  God. 

Eternity,  infinity,  immortality,  are,  for 
those  who  look  up  to  the  hills  whence 
cometh  their  help,  no  longer  vague  and 
visionary  dreams  of  men  tossing  rest 
lessly  in  the  darkness  of  a  night  which 
does  not  bring  repose;  they  are  the  solid 
realities  of  a  life  which  finds  in  them  the 
assurance  of  the  full  fruition  of  its  divina 
tions  and  possibilities  of  growth.  The 
world  is  haunted  by  these  sublime  visions 
whether  it  opens  or  closes  its  eyes;  all 
thought  and  action  lie  visibly  within  the 
circle  of  these  encompassing  hills.  The 
sense  of  the  infinite  is  planted  deep  in 
the  heart  of  modern  men;  the  passion 
for  the  infinite  consumes  them.  They 
have  found  in  music  a  language  subtle 
213 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

enough  and  spiritual  enough  not  to  ex 
press,  but  to  suggest,  the  infinite  and 
eternal  as  their  spirits  reach  out  to  fulfill 
and  possess  themselves;  and  all  art  is 
a  symbol  of  the  perfection  that  immor 
tality  brings  within  reach  of  the  soul. 
The  mechanical  appliances  which  lengthen 
the  range  of  the  eye  and  carry  the  voice 
over  half  a  continent  are  crude  sym 
bols  of  the  immense  reach  of  the  spir 
itual  nature  which  has  infinity,  eternity, 
and  immortality  before  it:  infinity,  room 
in  which  to  bring  out  all  the  power, 
beauty,  and  fruitfulness  of  the  soul; 
eternity,  boundless  time  added  to  bound 
less  space,  so  that  all  the  processes  of 
growth  may  fulfill  themselves  in  endless 
progression  of  flower  and  fruit;  immor 
tality,  the  unwasted  vitality  which  flows 
with  increasing  volume  through  deepen 
ing  channels  and  gives  the  soul  the  power 
to  possess  the  vastness  of  space  and 
illimitable  time  for  growth.  < 

These  great  fields  which  open  on  all 
sides  of  the  life  of  the  hour  and  certify 
214 


Immortal  Love 

to  the  soul  its  incalculable  richness,  the 
illimitable  reach  of  room  and  time,  as  of 
a  structure  not  built  by  hands  but  rising 
by  processes  of  growth  which  becomes 
more  and  more  marvelous  as  they  pass 
from  stage  to  stage,  are  not  matters  of 
faith  and  vision  for  prophets  and  poets 
only;  every  man  carries  within  himself, 
not  only  the  evidence  of  the  reality  of 
these  sublime  ideas,  but  the  consciousness 
of  the  power  to  possess  all  that  life  and 
time,  immortality  and  eternity,  offer  him. 
So  in  that  mysterious,  indefinable,  mea 
sureless  power  of  devotion,  self-sacrifice, 
and  consecration  which  we  call  love,  that 
deep-rooted  genius  which  harmonizes 
idealism  and  service,  and  in  the  imper 
fection  of  the  moment  foresees  the  per 
fection  of  the  future,  lies  the  present 
evidence  of  the  reality  of  the  great 
visions,  the  source  of  the  power  that 
possesses  and  uses  them.  God  has  set 
eternity  in  the  heart  of  man;  in  that  heart 
he  has  also  set  infinity;  for  love  is  with 
out  measure  of  time  or  magnitude. 
215 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

Prophets  and  poets  have  strained  the 
resources  of  all  the  languages  to  de 
scribe  and  define  it,  and  have  been  con 
tent  to  suggest  a  depth  and  power  which 
they  can  neither  sound  nor  measure;  for 
love  is  as  limitless  as  eternity  and  as 
boundless  as  infinity.  It  is  not  a  symbol 
of  immortality;  it  is  immortal.  It  strives 
to  bar  the  door  against  death  as  against 
an  enemy;  but  when  the  door  has  been 
forced  it  keeps  companionship  with  sor 
row  and  silently  walks  through  invisible 
paths  with  one  who  has  vanished,  but 
with  whom  love  travels  undismayed 
through  unseen  worlds.  Every  visible 
thing  crumbles,  changes,  and  disappears, 
for  the  hand  of  time  is  on  all  things;  but 
love,  which  is  winged  for  immortal  flight, 
escapes  the  tombs  in  which  the  ashes  of 
the  dead  lie  and  the  slow,  immutable  pro 
cesses  of  decay  which  bring  all  things 
made  with  the  hands  back  to  the  earth 
out  of  which  they  are  built.  It  has  no 
fellowship  with  death  save  as  death  ful 
fills  the  mandates  of  life  and  breaks  the 
216 


Immortal  Love 

bonds  of  the  spirit  as  it  passes  from  one 
form  to  another;  it  is  of  the  very  sub 
stance  of  life,  and  moves,  noiseless  and 
indestructible,  through  the  shadows  and 
mutations  of  the  world.  Loneliness  is 
often  its  portion  and  sorrow  its  compan 
ion;  but  death  has  no  power  over  it. 

In  love  the  passion  for  the  infinite  finds 
its  outlet  and  channel,  but  never  its  per 
fect  easement  and  satisfaction;  for  in 
finity  can  never  find  space  for  the  sweep 
of  the  wings  of  love  under  earthly  skies. 
There  are  no  channels  of  finite  service 
deep  enough  to  make  room  for  its  flood 
tides.  It  pours  itself  out  lavishly  and 
without  measure,  but  its  store  remains 
undiminished.  In  the  exact  degree  in 
which  it  gives  itself  as  it  increased,  and 
when  it  seems  to  bankrupt  itself  its  wealth 
is  multiplied.  It  goes  about  in  time  and 
the  world  like  a  child  that  has  strayed 
from  home,  seeking  some  one  who  speaks 
its  language,  and  never  finding  the  free 
dom  of  speech  which  it  craves. 

For  no  language  is  adequate  to  the  ex- 
217 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

pression  of  love,  though  all  the  languages 
which  the  soul  uses  have  striven  to  match 
its  infinity  of  meaning  with  finite  words. 
All  the  arts  have  spoken  for  it,  but  the 
heart  of  it  remains  without  a  voice.  In 
music  it  has  found  some  easement  of  the 
pain  of  emotion  and  passion  and  yearning 
unexpressed,  for  music  is  "  love  in  search 
of  a  word."  But  all  the  resources  of 
music  cannot  utter  what  is  in  the  heart  of 
love;  they  can  only  suggest  its  untold 
wealth  of  vision,  devotion,  service,  and 
bliss.  As  the  beauty  of  the  dawn  may 
for  a  moment  here  and  there  rapturously 
sing  in  the  notes  of  birds  which  it  has 
awakened  and  glow  in  the  color  of 
flowers  which  it  has  summoned  from 
sleep,  so  music  makes  now  and  again  a 
brief  pause  in  the  tumult  of  the  world, 
and  brings  a  sudden  and  wonderful  si 
lence  and  peace  of  eternity  in  the  unrest 
of  time;  but  there  is  only  a  sudden  vision 
of  heaven,  and  then  the  earth  fills  space 
again. 

Love  is  the  craving  of  the  immortal 
218 


Immortal  Love 

for  its  own  speech;  the  passion  of  the 
infinite  bound  about  for  the  moment  by 
the  finite;  the  immortal  soul  seeking  its 
own  and  loyally  waiting  for  it,  walking 
beside  it,  pouring  out  upon  it  its  limitless 
wealth,  as  it  passes  through  the  shadows 
of  mortality. 


219 


The  Wisdom  of  Youth 

THERE  is  a  wisdom  born  of  long  ex 
perience  in  the  ways  that  are  right 
and  in  paths  that  are  sweet  which  all  men 
honor  and  reverence,  for  there  is  some 
thing  that  comes  to  age  which  neither 
youth  nor  maturity  can  command.  But 
there  is  another  and  so-called  wisdom  of 
age  which  has  its  roots  in  the  weaknesses 
of  men,  not  in  their  strength,  in  the  fail 
ure  of  their  endeavors,  and  in  their 
doubts;  the  wisdom  of  prudence,  which 
hugs  the  shore  of  comfort  and  holds  back 
from  the  great  adventures  of  the  spirit, 
which  doubts  the  realities  of  the  higher 
life  because  no  longer  in  touch  with  them, 
which  challenges  every  generous  impulse 
and  chivalrous  experiment;  which  some 
times  recognizes  the  beauty  of  high  aims, 
but  always  questions  the  possibility  of 
realizing  them;  which  sees  the  long  line 
of  failures,  infelicities,  disappointments, 
and  says  to  ardent  Youth,  "  Be  sensible, 
220 


The  Wisdom  of  Youth 

give  up  your  dreams,  take  life  as  you  find 
it;  be  content  to  be  the  average  man  and 
the  average  woman  in  morals,  efficiency, 
and  aims;  the  others  are  only  dreamers!  " 
"  Behold,  this  dreamer  cometh!  "  has 
been  the  cry  of  men  and  women  who  con 
tent  themselves  with  this  wisdom,  since 
the  beginning  of  time.  But  the  dreamer 
comes,  and  once  more  the  morning  of 
hope  dawns  on  the  world.  A  few  months 
ago  in  all  parts  of  the  English  as  in  the 
German  speaking  world  there  were  com 
memorations  of  the  hundredth  anniver 
sary  of  the  death  of  a  man  who  was 
scorned  as  a  dreamer  in  his  time,  so 
beautiful  were  his  visions  and  so  im 
practicable;  but  the  men  who  scorned 
him  are  forgotten,  and  all  the  world 
loves  Schiller,  not  because  he  did  things 
with  his  hands,  but  because  he  was  con 
tent  to  walk  through  life  dreaming  the 
noble  things  that  were  possible  to  men. 

This  miscalled  wisdom  of  experience 
is  the  old  siren  song  of  worldiness,  sung 
in  the  ears  of  the  dwellers  in  Mesopo- 
221 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

tamia  before  there  were  sails  on  the 
Mediterranean.  It  is  the  philosophy  of 
the  men  and  women  who  have  exchanged 
their  ideals  for  their  comfort,  and,  be 
cause  their  ideals  no  longer  live  with 
them,  believe  that  ideals  have  ceased  to 
exist  for  everybody  else.  Such  a  man 
looks  out  of  the  window  of  his  well-fur 
nished  and  comfortable  room  and  shrugs 
his  shoulders  as  he  sees  youth  storm  past, 
ardent,  impetuous,  filled  with  great 
hopes;  and  goes  back  to  his  fire  and 
thinks  himself  wise,  and  does  not  know 
that  he  is  the  typical  fool  of  whom  the 
Bible  tells  us,  who  said,  "  There  is  no 
God!  "  This  prudent,  calculating,  doubt 
ful  attitude  toward  life  would  be  sound 
if  it  were  not  based  on  the  fundamental 
error  that  there  is  no  God.  In  "  Ham 
let  "  the  cautious,  prudent,  careful  Polo- 
nius,  warning  his  son  against  all  man 
ner  of  danger  and  counseling  him  to 
keep  away  from  life,  but  never  telling 
him  how  to  meet  and  master  it,  would  be 
right,  George  MacDonald  once  said,  if 
222 


The  Wisdom  of  Youth 

the  devil  were  God.  But  because  the 
devil  is  not  God  it  is  the  most  short 
sighted  policy  in  the  world.  The  wis 
dom  of  youth,  faith,  hope,  enthusiasm,  is 
based  on  the  fundamental  fact  that  there 
is  a  God,  that  therefore  the  best  things 
are  true,  and  that  the  best  things  belong 
to  men  and  are  within  their  reach  if  not 
their  grasp.  There  is  no  dream  which 
does  not  fall  short  of  the  reality,  because 
there  is  a  God.  Youth  trusts  instinct 
ively  the  hidden  forces  instead  of  fear 
ing  them,  marches  boldly  into  life  instead 
of  intrenching  itself  against  life,  risks 
years,  life,  talent,  heart,  as  great  souls 
have  always  risked  these  things,  in  be 
lieving  that  there  are  few  things  in  life 
worth  getting  but  a  host  of  things  worth 
being  and  a  host  of  things  worth  doing; 
that  it  is  better  to  meet  with  shipwreck 
seeking  worlds  than  to  rot  in  harbor- 
safety  !  Where  is  safety,  except  in  doing 
the  highest  things  possible  to  us  and 
going  to  the  ultimate  harbor  where  we 
can  cast  anchor  at  last? 
223 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

If  this  modern  world  is  to  be  saved,  it 
must  deepen  its  faith,  must  freshen  its 
hope,  must  preserve  its  enthusiasm.  Its 
problems  are  so  perplexing,  its  cares  so 
many,  its  duties  so  difficult,  that  nothing 
can  save  it  but  a  great  tide  of  spiritual 
vitality.  What  is  needed  in  private  and 
in  public  life  is  not  so  much  knowledge 
of  what  ought  to  be  done  as  strength  to 
do  what  we  know  is  waiting  to  be  done. 
Never  has  the  fight  between  the  things 
of  the  body  and  the  things  of  the  spirit 
been  so  sharply  defined  as  on  this  con 
tinent  to-day,  because  never  anywhere 
have  the  material  prizes  of  life  been  so 
great.  It  is  idle  to  preach  poverty  to 
men;  it  is  idle  to  tell  them  to  stop  get 
ting  rich;  they  cannot  help  it.  The 
combination  of  the  genius  which  God 
has  put  into  them,  with  the  knowledge 
of  the  modern  world  and  the  resources 
of  that  world,  compels  men  to  be  rich. 
To  preach  poverty  as  it  was  preached  in 
the  Middle  Ages  would  be  to  preach 
suicide  to  men.  To  say,  "  Arrest  your 
224 


The  Wisdom  of  Youth 

effort,  curb  your  energy,  stop  your  ac 
tivity,"  would  mean  going  backward. 
What  ought  to  be  said  is  not,  "  You  must 
become  poorer,"  but,  "  You  must  become 
stronger."  The  wealth  of  the  world  can 
be  carried  if  we  only  know  its  spiritual 
possibilities.  Wealth  is  a  merciless  and 
brutal  tryant  if  it  is  a  master;  it  is  a 
marvelous  servant  if  it  is  under  the  hand; 
and  the  one  real  question  on  this  conti 
nent  is  whether  we  are  to  be  the  serv 
ants  of  our  fortune  or  the  masters  of  it 
as  well  as  its  makers. 

The  real  antagonist  to  the  spirit  of 
materialism  is  the  spirit  of  youth  —  faith 
in  the  things  of  the  soul,  joy  in  the  work 
of  life,  belief  in  its  highest  aims,  enthu 
siasm  in  its  service.  Nothing  ages  men 
like  complete  absorption  in  affairs; 
nothing  keeps  men  young  like  freedom 
of  the  spirit;  it  is  the  letter  that  killeth; 
it  is  the  spirit  that  giveth  life. 


225 


Making  Opportunities 

IT  cannot  be  too  often  said  to  men  and 
women  of  all  ages,  nor  with  too  ample 
illustration,  that  opportunities  are  never 
to  be  waited  for  and  that  they  come  un 
awares.  Great  things  are  gained  by  in 
telligent  and  patient  waiting;  but  the  man 
who  stands  beside  the  highway  of  life 
waiting,  not  for  something  which  he  is 
prepared  to  receive  but  for  something 
which  accident  may  throw  in  his  way, 
will  never  be  overtaken  by  Fortune. 
When  Fortune  comes  his  way  she  will 
pass  without  any  recognition  from  him. 
It  sometimes  seems  as  if  life  were  a  great 
game,  and  as  if  the  invisible  player 
against  whom  all  men  and  women  are 
matched  delighted  in  perplexing  and  con 
fusing  his  opponents.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  life  is  so  saturated  with  the  moral 
quality  that  every  step  brings  us  face  to 
face  with  a  new  test.  The  great  things 
226 


Making  Opportunities 

are  for  the  most  part  so  humbly  garbed 
that,  unless  we  penetrate  their  disguise, 
we  do  not  recognize  them  until  they  have 
passed  and  are  a  long  way  off,  when 
we  discern  their  majesty.  In  Emerson's 
poem  "  The  Days  "  are  represented  as 
appearing  with  empty  hands  and  in  the 
humblest  dress;  but  if  a  man  fails  to 
recognize  them,  he  sees,  after  they  have 
passed,  that  they  are  queens  in  disguise 
and  that  their  hands  are  full  of  the 
choicest  gifts. 

The  difference  between  men  and 
women  lies  largely  in  the  ability  or  the 
lack  of  ability  to  penetrate  the  disguise 
of  the  opportunity  and  detect  its  true 
nature.  As  a  rule,  the  great  opportuni 
ties  on  which  success  turns  come  in  un 
expected  moments  and  ways;  and  the 
great  majority  of  men  who  have  attained 
marked  success,  as  they  look  back,  see 
clearly  that  they  passed  the  turning-points 
in  their  career  when  they  were  quite  un 
aware  that  they  were  on  critical  ground. 
No  one  ever  knows  when  his  opportunity 
227 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

will  come;  no  one  ever  knows  when  the 
decisive  moment  of  his  life  will  arrive. 
The  great  crises  are  often  like  a  bolt  out 
of  the  blue  of  a  summer  day;  there  is  not 
a  moment  for  preparation.  In  such 
crises  all  that  a  man  has  been  doing  in 
the  way  of  preparation  suddenly  bears  its 
fruit.  He  often  acts  instinctively;  he 
does  that  which  he  is  in  the  habit  of 
doing;  and,  because  he  is  in  the  habit  of 
doing  his  best  and  all  his  instincts  prompt 
him  to  put  forth  the  best  that  is  in  him,  he 
seizes  the  golden  moment  and  does  not 
discover  until  long  afterwards  that  it 
was  golden.  He  meets  his  great  crises 
with  clear  intelligence  and  a  resolute  will, 
and  passes  it  successfully  before  he  is 
aware  that  it  is  upon  him. 

Opportunities  are  created  by  the  devel 
opment  of  the  power  which  deals  with 
them,  and  they  come  to  men  and  women, 
as  a  rule,  in  exact  proportion  to  the  abil 
ity  to  recognize  and  handle  them.  There 
are  of  course  vast  differences  of  condition 
and  ability  between  men,  but  opportuni- 
228 


Making  Opportunities 

ties  come  to  all.  The  difference  lies  in 
the  ability  to  seize  the  right  moment  and 
make  effective  use  of  what  is  thrown  in 
one's  path.  Successful  careers  often  read 
like  romances,  so  full  do  they  seem  of 
the  chances  of  life,  so  purely  accidental 
appear  to  be,  at  the  first  glance,  the  open 
ings  of  the  gates  of  success.  It  is  true 
that  Malibran  happened  to  pass  under 
the  window  of  the  house  when  the  young 
violinist,  Ole  Bull,  was  practicing,  and 
that  apparent  accident  gave  the  brilliant 
young  violinist  the  great  opportunity  for 
which  he  longed;  but  Malibran  would  not 
have  paused,  nor  would  Ole  Bull  have 
been  sent  for,  if  the  notes  of  the  violin 
had  not,  by  their  compelling  beauty  and 
power,  arrested  her  attention  and  made 
the  fortune  of  the  player.  It  was  not 
Malibran  who  gave  Ole  Bull  his  chance; 
it  was  his  own  magical  skill.  Malibran 
furnished  the  opportunity,  but  the  oppor 
tunity  would  have  come  in  some  other 
way  if  the  famous  singer  had  not  passed 
under  the  window  of  the  violinist.  Men 
229 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

and  women  who  could  help  us  are  always 
passing  under  our  windows,  but  if  there 
is  nothing  in  us  which  lays  a  spell  upon 
them,  they  do  not  know  that  they  have 
passed  our  way  and  we  are  never  aware 
of  it.  The  streets  are  thronged  with 
those  who  could  open  the  doors,  and  the 
houses  they  pass  are  full  of  men  and 
women  who  long  to  have  the  doors 
opened;  but  it  is  only  the  man  or  woman 
of  skill,  power,  training,  and  discipline 
who  can  arrest  the  attention  and  com 
mand  the  chance.  The  way  to  secure 
opportunity  is  to  walk  resolutely  on  the 
pathway  along  which  opportunity  comes. 
He  who  waits  wastes  his  life.  He  who 
takes  his  fate  in  his  hand  and  goes  for 
ward,  sooner  or  later  finds  the  time  of  his 
deliverance  and  the  place  of  his  achieve 
ment. 


230 


Face  to  Face 

THE  bitter  outcry  of  Carlyle,  "  If 
God  would  only  speak  again  in 
these  days  as  he  has  spoken  in  other 
days !  "  has  risen  many  times  from  many 
hearts.  God  spoke  to  Abraham,  to 
Moses,  to  Elijah,  to  Paul,  to  Augustine, 
to  John  Knox;  why  has  he  become  silent 
when  the  world  so  sorely  needs  guidance 
and  heartening?  "  If  God  would  only 
speak!"  is  the  passionate  cry  of  many 
an  overburdened  man  and  woman  at  the 
very  moment  when  God  Is  speaking.  It 
is  so  much  easier  to  hear  the  still,  small 
voice  in  a  past  the  tumult  and  turmoil  of 
which  have  died  into  silence,  than  to  hear 
that  voice  in  the  uproar  of  the  present; 
to  see  the  divine  guidance  when  the  long 
path  lies  clear  in  history  as  an  upland  road 
on  a  keen  November  morning,  than  to  see 
it  as  it  unfolds  step  by  step  at  our  feet! 
Moreover,  God  uses  many  languages, 
231 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

and  continually  approaches  new  genera 
tions  of  men  in  view  forms  of  speech;  so 
that  each  generation  must  master  a  new 
tongue  if  it  would  understand  the  divine 
message.  Sometimes  it  is  a  sound  like  a 
voice  out  of  heaven,  sometimes  a  vision 
of  an  angel  in  the  night,  sometimes  a 
dream  of  a  ladder  reaching  to  the  skies, 
sometimes  the  burning  of  a  bush  which  is 
not  consumed,  sometimes  the  roar  of 
overwhelming  waves  and  thundering 
heavens,  sometimes  a  breath  of  consum 
ing  wrath,  and  sometimes  a  great  peace. 
In  a  thousand  ways  God  speaks  to  men  in 
an  intercourse  and  fellowship  which  is 
never  broken  for  an  instant;  in  the  circle 
of  which  all  men  are  included,  whether 
prophets,  poets,  kings,  and  saints,  or  fish 
ermen  and  outcasts;  which  includes  the 
good  and  the  bad  in  the  same  infinite 
compassion  and  love. 

For    God    speaks    as    distinctly    and 
directly  to  the  man  in  his  sins  as  in  his 
holiest  moments;  and  exposure,  punish 
ment,   and  shame   are   as  much  and  as 
232 


Face  to  Face 

truly  evidences  of  his  presence  as  honor 
and  influence  and  the  happiest  rewards 
of  the  pure  life.  When  sins  are  uncov 
ered  and  men  brought  to  judgment,  God's 
voice  is  heard  as  distinctly  as  when  the 
same  voice  said,  above  the  waters  of 
baptism,  "  This  is  my  beloved  Son." 
When  exposure  and  disgrace  overtake 
men  of  position  and  reputation,  God's 
voice  says,  "These  are  my  children;  I 
will  not  suffer  them  to  sink  to  the  lowest 
pit;  they  shall  be  saved  as  by  fire."  It  is 
the  infinite  tenderness  no  less  than  the 
infinite  justice  that  overtakes  men  who 
have  lost  the  way  and  are  selling  their 
souls  in  the  desert  of  greed  and  ambition 
and  love  of  power.  Happy  is  the  man 
whose  evil  deed  comes  to  the  light  and 
confronts  him  on  the  highway  before  he 
has  gone  over  the  final  precipice  into  the 
pit;  and  happy  is  the  community  when 
its  moral  diseases  reveal  themselves;  for 
it  is  better  to  be  outwardly  loathsome 
for  a  time  than  to  be  inwardly  vile  and 
no  physician  the  wiser !  God  is  speak- 
233 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

ing  in  these  recent  years  in  no  uncer 
tain  sound,  and  herein,  rather  than  any 
prosperity  of  lands  or  factories  or  ships, 
lies  the  good  fortune  of  our  time. 
Through  the  deafening  noise  of  ma 
chinery  and  trade  and  pleasure  come  once 
more  those  divine  tones  which,  whether 
in  righteous  indignation  or  in  yearning 
tenderness,  are  the  precious  evidence  of 
the  sonship  of  man  and  the  fatherhood 
of  God.  The  happy  hour  for  the  prodi 
gal  was  not  that  which  found  feasting 
with  his  fellows,  crowned  with  flowers 
and  lying  in  the  arms  of  pleasure;  but 
that  which  came  to  him  when  he  herded 
with  the  swine,  and  his  father's  voice 
suddenly  called  him  from  the  far  country 
home. 


234 


The  Last  Vigil 

A  WELL-KNOWN  bas-relief  repre 
sents  an  old  man  and  woman  re 
plenishing  a  torch.  In  the  stir  and  ex 
hilaration  of  the  lighting  of  the  torches, 
in  the  joy  of  bearing  them  swiftly 
through  the  gloom,  or  watching  them 
as  they  shine  in  the  mist  which  lies  on 
the  highway  of  life,  there  is  danger  of 
forgetting  those  who  have  run  the  race 
and  now,  in  weariness  and  often  in 
great  loneliness,  are  silently  waiting  the 
sinking  of  the  fire  of  the  torch.  They 
are  out  of  sight  and  sometimes  out  of 
mind;  for  there  is  always  an  eager  in 
terest  at  the  starting-point  and  an  en 
grossing  absorption  in  the  running  when 
the  day  is  at  its  height;  and  there  were 
once  for  these  keepers  of  lonely  vigils 
shouts  of  praise,  and  there  were  later 
the  pain  and  strain  of  the  race  in  its  hard 
est  stretches.  For  those  whose  faces  are 
235 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

aglow  with  the  earliest  joy  of  the  run 
ning,  or  are  set  with  the  stern  resolution 
of  those  who  have  forgotten  the  applause 
and  care  now  only  to  touch  the  goal, 
there  wait  the  same  quiet  vigil,-  the  same 
lonely  watching  of  the  sinking  fire. 

Tenderness  and  devotion  to  those  who 
no  longer  press  along  the  course  are  due 
not  to  age  as  a  matter  of  time — the  years 
mean  nothing  unless  they  bear  the  har 
vests  of  true  living  and  store  the 
granaries  of  experience — but  to  the  race 
well  run,  the  work  well  done,  the  pain 
and  strife  and  sorrow  bravely  borne,  the 
allotted  task  finished  in  faith  and  purity 
and  loyalty.  Blessed  are  they  from 
whose  hands  the  torch  has  not  fallen 
nor  the  light  failed  in  the  long  trial  of 
will  and  heart  and  nerve !  They  have 
not  only  made  the  highway  easier  for 
those  who  come  after,  but  they  kept  faith 
and  hope  in  the  nobility  of  the  race  and 
nourished  the  flame  for  those  who  are 
waiting  to  leave  the  starting-post  or  are 
questioning,  in  the  bitterness  of  the  long 
336 


The  Last  Vigil 

trial   of   strength,    whether   the   race   is 
worth  running. 

Youth  for  dreams,  maturity  for  put 
ting  forth  the  spirit  in  the  endeavor  to 
realize  them,  age  for  the  confirmation  of 
the  hope  of  their  reality!  In  all  the 
world  there  is  nothing  so  beautiful  as  the 
figure  of  the  spent  and  weary  runner 
guarding  with  reverent  and  trembling 
hands  the  torch  received  long  ago  and 
borne  with  quiet  faithfulness  through  the 
joy  and  the  pain  of  the  years.  In  the 
confusion  of  life,  when  men  dash  their 
torches  to  the  ground  and  rush  about  in 
a  frenzy  of  passion  or  a  chilling  stoicism 
or  with  denials  of  the  nobility  and  reality 
of  the  race  and  the  meaning  of  it  on  their 
lips,  the  faithful  runners  not  only  keep 
their  own  faith  but  the  faith  of  others; 
peace  and  joy  are  in  their  guardianship, 
and  they  bear  the  common  wealth  of 
humanity  in  their  hands  and  hearts.  So 
One  ran  centuries  ago  and  was  derided 
and  scorned  and  buffeted,  and  the  light 
he  bore  was  dashed  to  the  ground;  but 
237 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

in  the  agony  of  death  he  held  it  aloft, 
and,  behold!  the  ends  of  the  earth  are 
lighted  by  it ! 

But  when  the  race  is  over  ana  the 
throngs  have  passed  and  the  runner 
watches  the  sinking  flame  of  the  torch 
in  solitude,  there  often  comes  a  great 
loneliness.  The  other  runners,  whose 
feet  once  trod  the  same  way  and  whose 
voices  were  friendly  in  the  darkest  gloom, 
have  vanished  into  the  great  silence; 
the  younger  runners  belong  to  other  times 
and  have  other  companions  even  when 
they  are  most  tender  and  reverential;  it 
is  another  world  than  that  in  which  the 
torch  was  lighted,  and  there  are  no  more 
voices  that  share  and  speak  from  the 
same  depth  of  experience. 

In  the  loneliest  hour,  however,  the 
torch  remains,  and  from  the  torch 
streams  the  light,  however  faint,  in  which 
the  past  the  present,  and  the  future  are 
held  secure  against  the  environing  dark 
ness.  It  is  the  witness  of  memory;  in 
its  radiance  dear  faces,  now  vanished  in 
238 


The  Last  Vigil 

the  morning  light,  shine  as  when  the  glow 
of  youth  was  upon  them;  hours  of  happi 
ness,  moments  by  the  way  that  were  full 
of  anguish  and  are  now  fragrant  with  the 
sweetness  that  comes  out  of  sorrow  borne 
with  patient  trust;  years  of  brave  en 
deavor  and  quiet  fidelity  to  tasks  and 
works;  the  peace  which  flows  from  serv 
ice  and  the  joy  of  remembered  sacrifices 
all  these  live  within  the  circle  of  the 
flame. 

There,  too,  faint  but  clear,  present 
hope  and  task  and  reward  abide;  will 
ingness  to  wait  as  well  as  to  run,  to  be 
put  aside  as  well  as  to  be  set  at  the  front, 
to  cheer  the  passing  runner  as  well  as  to 
be  cheered,  to  keep  old  loyalties  fresh 
and  sweet  and  old  love  young  and  pure 
in  the  daily  renewal  of  memory,  to  stand 
fast  as  the  shadows  gather  and  to  guard 
the  sinking  fire  as  loyally  as  one  fed  the 
rising  flame. 

So  the  soft  light  of  memory  and  the 
narrowing  glow  within  which  duty  re 
veals  itself  become  the  symbol  of  immor- 
239 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

tality.  The  darkness  deepens,  the  world 
grows  still,  familiar  sounds  die  into 
silence,  upon  the  watcher  falls  the  sense 
of  isolation  of  those  who  wake  while 
others  sleep;  and,  lo !  while  the  vigil  is 
kept  the  gloom  is  shot  with  light,  for  at 
the  closed  window  the  light  waits,  and 
over  the  hills  come  the  dawn.  The  vigil 
is  at  an  end,  and  in  the  radiance  of  the 
morning  the  torch  is  extinguished. 


240 


Light  on  the  Way 

THE  New  Year  finds  men  and  women 
everywhere  patiently  or  impatiently 
bearing  heavy  burdens  and  facing  great 
uncertainties  of  fortune.  It  finds  many 
more  who  are  either  accepting  or  rebel 
ling  against  limitations  of  situation  and 
conditions;  it  finds  everywhere  the  pres 
ence  of  those  austere  teachers  —  care, 
grief,  and  the  necessity  for  work.  These 
great  teachers,  to  whom  all  the  race  has 
gone  to  school  since  the  beginning  of 
time,  wear  veils  over  their  faces;  but  so 
imperative  are  they,  so  inexorable  and  of 
such  commanding  attitude,  that  most  men 
have  come  to  think  of  them  as  task 
masters  rather  than  friends;  as  those  who 
drive  and  scourge  and  command,  rather 
than  those  who  are  seeking  the  best,  and 
who,  in  the  final  unveiling,  will  reveal 
the  faces  of  the  truest  because  the  most 
stimulating  friends;  for,  as  Emerson  said 
241 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

with  characteristic  insight,  "  Our  friends 
are  those  who  make  us  do  what  we  can." 
They  serve  us  best  who  do  not  flatter, 
but  who  make  us  aware  of  our  real  con 
dition,  whose  influence  is  to  make  us  dis 
satisfied  rather  than  satisfied  with  our 
selves,  and  who  will  not  suffer  us  to  fall 
short  of  the  highest  of  which  we  are  ca 
pable.  It  is  this  divine  element  in  the 
education  of  men,  in  all  the  great  rela 
tions  of  life  and  under  all  its  conditions, 
that  makes  living  so  difficult;  for  the 
greatness  of  the  art  or  the  knowledge  of 
which  one  is  trying  to  secure  command 
is  always  measured  by  the  severity  of 
the  education,  and  the  final  destiny  of 
all  who  strive  and  bear  and  climb  is  evi 
denced  by  the  severity  of  their  training. 
The  man  who  has  to  do  an  easy  bit  of 
mechanical  work  learns  to  do  it  in  a 
week,  but  Michaelangelo,  Dante,  and 
Beethoven  must  serve  long  years  of  ap 
prenticeship  before  the  final  skill  comes. 
The  shaping  of  a  soul  requires  proc 
esses  more  prolonged,  methods  more  se- 
242 


Light  on  the  Way 

vere,  tools  at  once  more  delicate  and 
finely  tempered  than  the  shaping  of  the 
most  exquisite  or  the  most  glorious  piece 
of  art  ever  made  by  the  hands  of  men. 
The  highest  reach  of  art  is  the  full  ex 
pression  of  some  experience,  emotion, 
hope,  or  thought  of  the  human  soul;  the 
highest  that  an  artist  can  attain  is  to  con 
vey,  by  a  few  symbols,  some  sense  of 
what  is  going  on  in  the  life  of  a  human 
spirit.  To  shape  this  spirit,  to  give  it 
its  direction,  to  mold  it  to  its  highest  uses, 
to  bring  it  to  mastery  and  power  and  free 
dom,  is,  therefore,  a  far  more  difficult 
matter  than  the  training  of  an  artist,  how 
ever  great,  or  the  unfolding  of  any  art, 
however  glorious.  This  is  what  the 
school  of  life  achieves;  and  because  its 
tasks  are  heavy,  its  text-books  difficult  to 
master,  its  discipline  severe  sometimes  to 
the  point  of  agony,  they  who  bear  and 
learn  and  grow  may  take  from  the  very 
severity  of  their  training  the  promise  and 
the  expectation  of  a  development  which 
in  its  range,  its  resources,  and  the  influ- 
243 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

ences  of  beauty  and  of  peace  which  it  will 
command,  travels  far  beyond  the  vision 
of  the  most  audacious  hope. 


244 


The  Loneliness  of  Life 

THE  experience  of  one  man  or 
woman  is  always  the  experience  of 
many  men  and  women.  In  the  times 
when  the  sense  of  loneliness  and  isola 
tion  is  sharpest  and  hardest  to  bear  we 
are  surrounded  by  those  who  are  shar 
ing  the  same  loneliness  and  solitude.  We 
cannot  speak  to  one  another  of  experi 
ences  which  are  shaking  our  spirits  as  a 
tree  is  shaken  by  the  tempest,  but  when  the 
silence  is  most  impenetrable  we  are  shar 
ing  the  deep  things  of  life.  If  it  were 
not  so,  life  would  be  mere  "  sound  and 
fury,  signifying  nothing,"  and  individu 
ality  would  be  the  evidence  of  a  broken 
and  dismembered  humanity  instead  of  the 
realization  of  the  vastness  of  life  as  it 
touches  the  human  spirit. 

We  are  separated,  not  by  differences  of 
trial  and  sorrow,  but  by  our  inability  to 
interpret  trial  and  sorrow  to  ourselves. 
245 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

What  we  clearly  understand  we  can  ex 
press  to  others;  but  while  we  are  strug 
gling  to  understand  we  are  silent,  as  chil 
dren  are  silent  in  the  presence  of  things 
which  are  real  to  them  but-  which  they 
cannot  understand.  The  child  most  ten 
derly  loved  and  wisely  cared  for  in  mind 
as  well  as  in  body  is  often  pathetically 
lonely,  not  because  others  fail  to  under 
stand  him,  but  because  he  cannot  under 
stand  himself.  In  a  world  full  of  real 
things  and  tangible  happenings  he  is  sur 
rounded  by  mysteries  and  haunted  by 
the  sense  of  unseen  things.  The  fairies, 
giants,  witches,  and  strange  creatures 
with  whom  children  have  always  lived  in 
the  half-light  of  childhood  are  creations, 
not  of  their  fears,  but  of  their  sense 
of  things  hidden  from  them.  To  those 
who  love  them  most  tenderly  and  are 
most  eager  to  understand  and  help,  they 
cannot  speak  of  these  things  because 
they  are  baffled  by  the  mystery  of  it 
all.  The  mother  who  sings  to  her  child 
the  wonderful  song  of  her  tender  and 
246 


The  Loneliness  of  Life 

passionate  love  holds  a  little  stranger 
in  arms. 

We  are  kept  apart  not  by  differences 
of  experience;  we  are  all  sharing  the 
same  life;  it  has  many  aspects  and  pre 
sents  itself  in  many  forms,  but  it  is  made 
up  of  a  few  deep,  searching,  fundamental 
experiences.  Sorrow  comes  by  many 
paths  and  wears  many  guises,  but  when 
it  walks  with  us  it  is  not  as  one  sent  to 
us  alone  among  all  the  sons  of  men;  it 
is  the  companion  of  all  who  live.  Death 
has  many  ways  of  approach  and  is  called 
by  many  names,  but  when  his  hand  falls 
on  us  it  is  the  hand  which  has  summoned 
all  who  have  gone  before  us  and  will 
summon  all  who  come  after  us. 

In  the  later  childhood  which  we  call 
maturity,  although  it  has  gone  only  a  lit 
tle  further  in  the  education  which  we  call 
life,  there  is  the  same  sense  of  environ 
ing  mystery,  the  same  consciousness  of 
"  moving  about  in  worlds  not  realized." 
We  are  only  children  of  a  larger  growth, 
and  the  reticence  of  childhood  is  upon  us 
247 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

when  we  pass  through  the  lonely  places 
and  wonder  whither  we  are  being  led, 
or  sit  in  desolation  and  cannot  understand 
why  the  world,  grown  dear  and  familiar, 
has  fallen  in  ruins  about  us. 

The  loneliness  of  life  comes  from  its 
vastness;  we  are  immortal  in  a  world  that 
perishes  about  us;  we  are  stirred  by  the 
sense  of  greatness  in  our  souls  and  weak 
ness  in  our  bodies;  we  reach  out  to  in 
finity  in  our  desires  and  our  hands  fall 
empty  at  our  sides;  we  crave  imperisha 
ble  love  now  and  here,  and  death  robs 
us  while  we  stand  guard  against  him;  we 
are  all  learning  the  lessons  of  life,  but 
not  in  classes;  each  learns  according  to 
the  laws  of  his  individuality,  through  his 
own  temperament. 

The  end  is  common,  the  paths  are  indi 
vidual.  Sometimes  these  paths  run  par 
allel  for  a  time;  often  they  run  far  apart. 
Sometimes  we  can  talk  by  the  way;  often 
there  is  no  speech  between  us  because  the 
voice  cannot  carry  across  the  distance  that 
separates  us. 

348 


The  Loneliness  of  Life 

But  below  all  things  that  keep  us  apart 
there  is  a  fundamental  unity  which  pre 
pares  us  for  perfect  companionship;  as  in 
a  thousand  schools,  pursuing  a  thousand 
courses,  we  are  receiving  an  education 
which  liberates  us  for  the  freedom  in 
which  we  shall  possess  ourselves  and  in 
possessing  ourselves  possess  one  another. 

The  loneliness  of  Christ  came  from  his 
perfect  knowledge  of  men  and  their  igno 
rance  of  him.  He  had  reached  the  goal, 
and  they  were  so  far  from  it  that  they 
saw  it  only  as  in  rare  moments  they 
caught  far  and  faint  glimpses  of  it  in 
his  stainless  and  radiant  life.  He  could 
speak  to  them  only  in  parables  which  they 
but  dimly  understood,  as  children  get 
baffling  glimpses  of  great  truths  which 
cannot  be  made  plain  to  them;  this  made 
his  life  a  Gethsemane.  His  joy  lay  in 
the  knowledge  that  the  disciples  were 
traveling  his  way  and  that  the  knowledge 
that  would  reveal  him  to  them  was  com 
ing  day  by  day,  The  light  came  slowly 
to  them  as  it  comes  to  us,  and  there  were 
349 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

many  false  dawns;  but  the  day  will  break 
in  which  we  shall  look  into  his  face  and 
into  the  faces  of  one  another  and  under 
stand. 


250 


The  Credibility  of  Love 

64  \  LL  the  world  loves  a  lover  "  not 
JT\.  only  because  he  recalls  a  brief 
ecstasy  in  the  memory  of  the  multitude 
who  are  living  in  the  light  of  common 
day,  but  because  he  rounds  out  to  its  full 
dimensions  the  passional  and  romantic 
capacity  of  the  race.  For  a  host  of  men 
and  women  life  is  a  tracery,  gradually  be 
coming  obliterated,  of  generous  passions 
and  great  hopes;  a  fading  of  the  sky  of 
dawn  into  the  dull  arch  of  a  gray  noon. 
It  is  not  the  blackness  in  life  that  brings 
weariness  and  repulsion,  it  is  the  monot 
onous  grayness;  it  is  not  radical  skep 
ticism  that  blights  faith  and  takes  the 
bloom  off  the  days  —  it  is  indifference, 
disillusion,  cynicism.  The  root  of  these 
destructive  forces  which  rob  life  of  its 
romance,  its  wonder,  its  perennial  fresh 
ness  of  interest,  is  in  the  man,  not  in  the 
order  of  things;  and  society  has  always 
251 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

been  full  of  those  who,  losing  the  mind 
and  heart  of  childhood,  have  not  real 
ized  the  aging  of  their  spirits  and  have 
thought  the  world  grown  old.  Now  the 
lover,  wiser  than  the  children  of  the 
world,  carries  the  fresh  heart  and  keeps 
his  vision  securely  among  the  blind. 

"  Great  men  are  the  true  men,"  writes 
Amiel,  "  the  men  in  whom  nature  has 
succeeded.  They  are  not  extraordinary, 
they  are  in  true  order.  It  is  the  other 
species  of  men  who  are  not  what  they 
ought  to  be."  The  story  of  the  rise  of 
men  from  the  stone  age  has  been  a  long 
record  of  discovery  —  the  continual  find 
ing  of  unsuspected  wealth  and  of  unused 
forces  in  earth  and  air;  and  it  is  quite 
certain  that  there  are  hidden  from  us 
to-day,  within  our  reach  or  the  reach  of 
our  children,  a  thousand  uses  of  the 
chemistry  of  the  soil  and  air,  of  which 
the  marvelous  divinations  of  the  last  two 
decades  have  been  only  dimly  prophetic. 
If  this  inexhaustible  treasury  of  uses  and 
adaptations,  of  force  and  material,  were 
252 


The  Credibility  of  Love 

not  matched  by  a  kindred  capacity  in  men, 
there  would  have  been  no  history  of 
science,  and  the  world  would  present  the 
ignoble  paradox  of  an  incalculable  for 
tune  in  the  keeping  of  an  imbecile.  That 
treasury  never  opens  save  at  the  touch 
of  intelligence,  and  the  rarest  things  it 
guards  are  accessible  only  to  the  insight 
of  genius,  so  that  the  story  of  discovery 
is  the  story  of  the  discoverer;  his  growth 
has  been  registered  in  the  uncovering  of 
the  secrets  of  the  world  in  which  he  lives. 
From  the  beginning  he  has  been  slowly 
or  rapidly  bringing  out  of  the  depths  of 
his  nature  great  and  heroic  qualities;  he 
has,  with  infinite  labor,  made  a  place  for 
himself  not  only  with  the  work  but  among 
the  thoughts  of  God.  And  he  is  still 
in  an  early  stage  of  his  growth;  despite 
the  forebodings  of  the  faint-hearted  or 
the  near-sighted,  despite  the  apprehen 
sions  of  those  who  do  not  recognize  the 
multiplying  signs  that  we  are  in  a  grow 
ing,  not  in  a  completed,  universe,  the  fu 
ture  holds  more  spiritual  and  subtle  gifts 
253 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

in  its  hands,  and  men  are  unfolding  more 
and  more  the  capacity  to  receive  and  use 
these  higher  things.  In  the  face  of  a 
thousand  discouraging  outbreaks  and 
downfalls,  men  are  rising  in  the  scale  of 
spiritual  living,  and  there  are  before  the 
race  almost  unsuspected  possibilities  of 
greatness. 

The  unimaginative  suspect  the  reality 
of  the  conclusions  of  the  man  of  insight, 
and  in  every  age  the  Cassandras  who 
have  foreseen  the  approach  of  fate  have 
been  rejected  and  scorned;  but  the  man 
of  imagination  is  the  only  man  who  really 
sees  the  world  or  knows  what  it  holds  for 
men.  Greatness  has  so  far  been  incredi 
ble  to  small  men,  and  from  time  to  time 
futile  attempts  are  made  to  explain  genius 
as  a  form  of  disease;  as  if  the  early 
stages  of  growth  could  be  wholesome, 
and  the  supreme  stage,  the  final  decisive 
planting  of  the  feet  on  the  summit,  ab 
normal!  It  is  in  greatness,  not  in  little 
ness,  that  nature  touches  the  goal  of  her 
endeavor;  and  great  spirits  are  neither 
254 


The  Credibility  of  Love 

abnormal  nor  diseased;  "  they  are  in  true 
order."  This  does  not  involve  a  new 
kind  of  men  in  the  world;  it  involves  a 
higher  development  of  the  men  now  in 
possession  of  the  world.  It  may  be  sus 
pected  that  a  vast  amount  of  what  ap 
pears  to  be  mediocrity  is  in  reality  unde 
veloped  intelligence  and  power,  and  that 
society  needs  not  so  much  a  wider  posses 
sion  of  intellect  as  a  higher  energizing  of 
the  intellect  it  is  very  inadequately  using. 
In  like  manner  there  are  immense  re 
serves  of  passion,  devotion,  chivalry,  still 
to  be  drawn  on;  the  world  is  full  of  men 
who  might  be  great  lovers  if  they  knew 
that  love  is  an  art  as  well  as  an  ecstasy. 
There  are  as  many  undeveloped  resources 
of  love  in  the  hearts  of  men  as  there  are 
undeveloped  forces  and  qualities  in  the 
world  about  and  the  soul  within  us.  Un 
der  the  pressure  of  the  tyranny  of  things, 
in  a  critical  age  which  distrusts  the  re 
ality  of  great  spiritual  superiorities  and 
is  afraid  of  great  passions,  those  who 
might  reap  the  uttermost  harvests  of  love 
255 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

are  content  with  a  few  sheaves ;  they  look 
at  the  glow  in  the  sky  of  youth  as  a  pa 
thetic  promise  of  a  day  which  never 
dawned.  The  ecstasies  reported  by  the 
great  lovers  they  regard  as  the  poetic 
or  symbolic  expressions  of  imaginative 
men.  To  the  literal-minded  such  an  ex 
perience  as  that  recorded  in  the  "  Vita 
Nuova  "  has  no  roots  in  reality;  it  is 
an  elaborate  and  somewhat  morbid  fic 
tion  of  a  great  poet.  There  are  many 
who  accept  the  authenticity,  of  Romeo's 
consuming  passion  but  reject  utterly  the 
sustained  passion  transmuted  into  a  great 
idealism  which  has  its  classic  examples 
in  Beatrice  and  Laura.  In  the  preoccu 
pation  of  pressing  affairs,  the  absorption 
of  vitality  in  dealing  with  things,  the  im 
agination  is  undeveloped  and  becomes 
atrophied,  and  the  stunted  spirit  grows 
skeptical  of  the  reality  and  uses  of  po 
etry;  and  in  like  manner  the  failure  to 
unfold  the  power  of  love  by  the  practice 
of  the  art  of  loving  makes  the  maimed 
spirit  incredulous  of  the  ecstasies  and 
256 


The  Credibility  of  Love 

adoration  of  those  who  are  possessed  by 
the  genius  of  passion.  Mercutio  makes 
sport  of  Romeo's  intensity  of  emotion  be 
cause  the  great  passion  has  not  touched 
him;  let  the  faintest  breath  rest  on  that 
gallant  nature  and  the  scorn  of  a  world 
would  not  count  a  feather's  weight 
against  its  splendid  devotion.  To  be 
lieve  in  great  thoughts  and  deeds  a  man 
must  share  in  them;  to  believe  in  a  great 
passion  a  man  must  experience  it;  for  to 
every  man  come  the  things  which  belong 
to  him  by  reason  of  his  aims,  loves,  faith. 
To  the  commonplace  the  commonplace  is 
always  present;  to  those  who  have  vision 
as  well  as  sight  the  world  grows  more 
wonderful  the  further  they  penetrate  its 
mysteries.  To  the  nature  that  has  never 
known  a  great  passion  passing  on  into 
a  secure  and  noble  devotion  the  annals 
of  love  belong  to  the  literature  of  fiction; 
to  those  who  know  what  love  may  become 
in  the  hearts  of  the  pure  and  the  lives 
set  apart  to  its  service,  they  are  faint 
transcriptions  of  an  experience  that  lies 
257 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

for  the  most  part  beyond  the  bounds  of 
speech. 

There  is  a  greatness  in  love  as  in  mind, 
a  superiority  which  reveals  without  ex 
plaining  itself,  a  genius  which  is  as  real 
as  it  is  inexplicable.  The  skepticism  of 
those  upon  whom  this  divine  grace  has 
never  rested,  the  cynicism  of  those  who 
have  lost  the  power  of  love  through  in 
fidelities  to  its  nature  and  laws,  the  in 
difference  of  those  who  work  with  their 
hands  and  are  content  never  to  look  at 
the  sky  over  their  heads,  count  as  little 
as  do  the  blind  man's  doubt  of  the  reality 
of  painting,  the  deaf  man's  skepticism 
of  the  spell  of  music,  the  bad  man's  de 
nial  of  virtue.  In  the  art  of  love,  as  in 
all  things,  life  is  full  of  the  pathos  of  the 
searching  saying  that  "  unto  every  one 
that  hath  shall  be  given,  and  he  shall  have 
abundance;  but  from  him  that  hath  not 
shall  be  taken  away  even  that  which  he 
hath." 


258 


The  Easter  Vision 

SIGHT  he  had,  but  not  vision.  The 
things  about  him  stood  out  with  the 
utmost  distinctness;  every  line  was 
sharply  defined,  every  feature  and  shape 
distinctly  limned.  So  accustomed  was  he 
to  entire  accuracy  of  perception,  to  per 
fect  exactness  of  knowledge,  that  he  was 
impatient  of  any  blur  in  another's  sight, 
any  uncertainty  in  another's  report  or  ac 
count  of  things.  Confidence  in  his  own 
judgment  had  become  second  nature  with 
him;  he  acted  as  one  who  could  make  no 
mistakes.  And  this  was  the  impression 
others  received  from  him.  All  men 
spoke  of  his  clearness  of  judgment;  of 
the  vigor  and  decision  of  his  nature;  of 
the  weight  and  authority  of  his  character. 
He  was,  in  a  word,  the  master  of  his 
world. 

But  it  was  significant  that,  while  men 
went  to  him  for  advice  in  all  practical 
matters,  no  man  ever  sought  his  counsel 
259 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

in  any  moral  confusion  or  uncertainty; 
no  man  struggling  to  his  feet  from  the 
mire  in  which  he  had  slipped  ever  turned 
to  him  for  help ;  no  man  compassed  about 
with  sorrow  and  in  the  presence  of  the 
supreme  experiences  of  life  ever  so  much 
as  thought  of  him.  Exact,  trustworthy, 
keen,  truthful,  the  man  of  clear  sight 
touched  his  fellows  only  in  the  world  of 
things;  when  the  fortunes  of  the  soul 
were  in  the  balance,  he  neither  saw  nor 
felt  nor  understood. 

To  him  all  these  intangible  interests 
were  as  if  they  were  not.  He  managed 
his  acres  with  perfect  judgment,  but  he 
could  not  see  the  landscape  which  en 
veloped  them;  he  saw  the  little  section 
of  world  in  which  he  worked,  but  the 
universe  was  invisible  to  him.  In  his 
sight  men  were  born,  grew  into  child 
hood  and  youth,  passed  on  into  manhood, 
did  their  work,  died  and  vanished  from 
sight,  and  that  was  the  end.  He  saw 
the  outlines  of  their  character  with  mar 
velous  clearness;  he  knew  where  they 
260 


The  Easter  Vision 

were  efficient  and  where  they  were  weak; 
he  judged  with  exactness  of  their  value 
for  practical  service;  but  of  their  inner 
experience,  of  their  spiritual  struggles,  of 
the  forces  and  conflicts  which  give  char 
acter  its  quality  and  life  its  meaning,  he 
knew  nothing.  He  was  a  master  of  the 
knowledge  of  things,  but  no  ray  of  that 
wisdom  which  gives  a  man  understanding 
of  life  ever  penetrated  the  central  dark 
ness  of  his  mind.  He  had  sight,  but  he 
was  without  vision. 

Now,  all  the  wealth  of  this  man's  na 
ture  was  lavished  on  one  whom  he  loved 
not  blindly  but  instinctively  —  with  the 
passion  of  the  heart  which  gropes  after 
those  things  that  it  needs  without  know 
ing  that  it  needs  them.  In  this  woman's 
eyes  the  man  who  loved  her  saw,  without 
seeing,  the  reflection  of  that  heaven  which 
was  beyond  his  sight;  and  in  her  nature 
he  felt,  without  understanding,  the  play 
and  stir  of  those  spiritual  impulses  and 
forces  which  slowly  fashion  in  a  mortal 
frame  an  immortal  spirit;  and  in  her  life 
261 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

he  was  aware  of  a  wealth  of  tenderness, 
of  devotion,  of  self-surrender,  which  he 
could  neither  measure  nor  compute.  And 
she  became  as  his  own  soul,  for  she  was 
vision  to  him,  and  in  her  the  mystery  and 
blessedness  of  life  was  present  though 
never  revealed. 

This  woman  died,  and  the  man's  heart 
broke  within  him,  and  the  world  of  sight 
lay  in  ruins  about  him;  for  he  saw  noth 
ing  save  the  beautiful  garment  which  the 
spirit  had  laid  aside;  and  that,  too,  was 
put  out  of  his  sight.  He  was  in  a  prison 
of  hopeless  misery;  and  many  tried  to 
speak  to  him,  but  he  could  not  under 
stand  them  for  the  thickness  of  the  walls 
which  surrounded  him;  and  many  strove 
to  release  him,  but  he  could  not  be  freed, 
for  he  had  locked  the  great  doors  from 
within. 

In  the  darkness  the  man  no  longer  saw 
the  old  familiar  things,  and  became  as 
one  blind;  groping  for  the  accustomed 
places  of  rest  and  finding  them  not,  for 
the  sweet  ways  and  usages  of  love  and 
262 


The  Easter  Vision 

missing  them.  His  outstretched  hands 
touched  nothing,  and  his  passionate  long 
ings  returned  upon  themselves  and  turned 
to  deepest  pain;  and  in  his  solitude  and 
desolation  nothing  abode  with  him  save 
memory. 

For  a  time  he  was  as  one  dead,  but  one 
dear  memory  kept  companionship  with 
him;  and  in  the  silence  and  darkness  one 
image  was  always  in  his  thought.  As 
the  days  went  by,  that  image  seemed  to 
fill  his  soul,  and  grew  more  real,  and 
touched  the  hidden  springs  of  life  within 
him,  and  his  heart  grew  tender  under  the 
spell  of  the  great  love  with  which  he  lived 
alone  in  a  night  in  which  the  earth  seemed 
to  have  vanished. 

As  his  love  deepened,  a  glimmer  of 
hope  began  to  suffuse  the  night,  like  a 
faint  radiance  from  a  light  beyond  the 
horizon,  and  delicate  tendrils  began  to 
climb  out  of  his  heart  toward  that  light; 
and  there  came  a  breath  of  something 
surpassingly  sweet,  like  a  fragrance  from 
invisible  gardens. 

263 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

And  the  spirit  of  the  man  softened  and 
stirred,  and  he  lifted  his  face,  and  the 
dim  outlines  of  a  new  world  slowly  dis 
closed  themselves.  As  he  looked  with 
wonder  and  awe  and  the  yearning  of  a 
child  stretching  out  its  hands  toward  the 
light,  this  world  became  more  distinct, 
and  spread  around  him  a  beauty  such  as 
he  had  never  so  much  as  dreamed  of 
before.  There  were  familiar  objects  in 
that  world,  but  they  were  no  longer  hard 
and  rigid;  the  outlines  were  lost  in  vaster 
designs  and  were  tender  with  new  and 
deeper  meaning;  the  familiar  acres  were 
folded  in  a  vaster  landscape,  whose  far 
horizons  seemed  to  recede  into  luminous 
distances  suffused  with  a  light  that 
streamed  from  the  heart  of  things,  and 
enveloped  them  in  a  splendor  and  beauty 
which  broke  out  of  them  like  a  mighty 
flood  of  life. 

The  man  went  abroad  once  more  with 

the  heart  of  a  child,  and  looked  up  to  the 

heavens  that  had  grown  infinitely  tender 

and  benignant,  and  across  the  landscape 

264 


The  Easter  Vision 

that  glowed  and  bloomed  about  his  feet; 
for  love  had  unsealed  his  eyes,  and  the 
power  of  sight  had  passed  on  into  vision. 
And  as  he  walked  he  was  not  alone,  for 
one  walked  beside  him  whose  presence 
was  peace  and  whose  companionship 
brought  faith  and  trust  and  rest.  The 
perishing  world  which  he  had  once  seen 
had  widened  to  become  the  imperishable 
world  which  love  builded  in  the  far 
beginning,  and  which  love  enriches  and 
enlarges  and  makes  more  beautiful  with 
the  coming  of  every  soul  that  enters  into 
it  through  the  gates  of  birth  and  of  death, 
for  both  are  the  gates  of  life. 

And  as  he  looked,  behold,  the  places 
where  the  dead  lay  were  blossoming 
fields ;  for  in  all  the  reach  and  being  of  the 
universe  there  was  no  death.  Through 
all  things  streamed  the  mighty  tides  of 
life,  and  in  the  range  of  his  vision  the 
barren  places  broke  into  bloom,  and  far 
as  his  eager  spirit  traveled  there  were  the 
stirrings  and  strivings  of  tender  and  deli 
cate  and  mysterious  things  growing  in 
265 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

strength  and  beauty.  And  there  was  no 
more  night;  for  in  the  darkness,  as  in  the 
light,  infinite  love  watched  and  waited 
and  cherished  all  things  in  its  immortal 
hands;  and  nothing  was  forgotten  or  lost. 
And  he  saw  the  universe  traversed  by  a 
countless  host  to  whom  sight  had  become 
vision;  full  of  the  repose  of  a  great  free 
dom  and  the  deep  joy  of  perfect  strength 
fitted  to  imperishable  ends.  And  in  that 
multitude  he  became  aware  of  those  who 
had  laid  aside  all  care  and  sorrow  and 
entered  into  the  fullness  of  life;  and  one 
moved  near  him  —  no  longer  a  memory, 
but  a  visible  presence  —  who  had  van 
ished  in  the  darkness  of  his  great  sorrow; 
who  had  gone  out  of  his  sight  to  live 
henceforth  stainless,  radiant,  and  immor 
tal  in  his  vision;  no  longer  hidden  behind 
the  veil  which  she  had  worn  in  the  days 
before  the  revelation,  but  shining  without 
blur  or  dimness  or  shadow  upon  the 
beauty  of  her  unclouded  spirit.  And 
after  all  the  years  of  his  love  he  knew 
266 


The  Easter  Vision 

that  for  the  first  time  he  saw  her  as  she 
was. 

And  the  air  was  soft  about  him,  and 
the  fragrance  of  the  early  flowers  was 
borne  to  him;  and  like  a  far  music  he 
heard  the  bells  of  Easter  ringing  above 
the  churchyard. 


The  Plus  Sign 

THE  preacher  stood  at  the  front  of 
the  chancel  without  book  or  note  — 
a  tall,  vigorous  figure  with  a  strongly 
molded  face.  Through  the  open  win 
dows  of  the  little  rustic  church  came  the 
breath  of  the  sea  and  the  sweetness  of  the 
pines.  The  day  was  fair  and  still,  and 
the  sunshine,  falling  on  the  white  birches, 
was  like  the  purity  of  heaven.  Un 
troubled  peace  filled  the  wide  sweep  of 
sky  and  enfolded  the  worshipers.  There 
was  no  faintest  echo  of  far-off  guns,  no 
hint  in  earth  or  air  of  unparalleled  tem 
pest  engulfing  half  the  world;  there  was 
the  silence  of  a  world  asleep  and  radiant 
with  the  bloom  of  midsummer. 

But  there  was  not  an  ear  in  which  the 
thunder  of  battle  was  not  heard,  not  a 
heart  which  was  not  heavy  with  a  sense  of 
unspeakable  grief;  the  worshipers  had 
entered  into  the  experience  of  Gethsem- 
268 


The  Plus  Sign 

ane  and  were  bearing,  each  in  the  meas 
ure  of  his  capability,  the  sorrows  of  the 
world.  The  sea  was  half  veiled  by  a 
mist  that  seemed  an  exhalation  of  light 
drifting  in  and  out;  but  beyond,  darkness 
rested  on  the  face  of  the  waters  and 
blackness  of  thick  darkness  lay  like  a  pall 
over  the  hopes  and  aspirations  of  men. 
The  earth  that  had  seemed  to  be  rolling 
slowly  heavenward  had  slipped  back  to 
hell ;  when  the  day  seemed  to  be  at  hand, 
night  had  come  sweeping  back;  how 
could  the  world  regain  the  beauty  that 
had  been  ravished,  the  strength  that  had 
been  poured  out  like  water,  the  lost  treas 
ures  of  faith  and  hope  that  had  been  pain 
fully  gathered  in  the  long  ascent  of  the 
race  out  of  savagery?  The  waste  of  it 
all  was  intolerable,  incredible,  blasting  to 
faith,  and  the  preacher,  facing  the  worst 
and  sounding  the  deeps  of  sorrow,  held 
the  cross  aloft,  as  St.  Paul  had  held  it,  as 
the  glory  of  life.  It  was  not  the  supreme 
tragedy  of  life,  but  the  supreme  unveil 
ing  of  the  heart  of  God.  The  Mountain 
269 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

of  the  Beatitudes  was  beautiful  with 
promises  of  peace  and  purity,  but  it  was  a 
foothill  on  the  way  to  the  Mountain  of 
the  Cross.  The  sorrow  of  life,  ex 
pressed  in  the  cross,  is  not  a  black  shadow 
on  a  lovely  landscape;  it  brings  out  the 
beauty  of  that  landscape  and  gives  mass 
and  power  and  terrible  splendor  to  its 
structure.  It  is  not  a  subtraction  from 
the  sum  of  living,  but  an  eternal  addition. 
It  strikes  a  deeper  note  and  reveals 
a  more  glorious  destiny  for  men. 
Through  the  dreams  of  ease  and  comfort 
and  security  it  lends  a  sudden  vision  of 
things  more  precious  than  ease,  more  to 
be  desired  than  comfort,  infinitely  more  to 
be  prized  than  security. 

The  cross,  the  preacher  said,  put  a  halo 
about  courage  and  gave  courage  its  spirit 
ual  meaning.  It  showed  how  transcend 
ent  are  spiritual  and  invisible  things. 
Men  have  died  by  the  million  during  the 
past  year;  not  grudgingly  and  unwillingly, 
but  gladly;  they  have  met  death,  not  with 
shrinking,  but  with  a  cheer*  Jn  this 
270 


The  Plus  Sign 

country  we  are  so  much  in  love  with  life, 
so  eager  to  share  its  activities  and  grasp 
its  rewards,  that  we  have  forgotten  how 
slight  a  value  life  has  simply  as  life,  how 
entirely  its  dignity  and  worth  come  from 
what  is  put  into  and  taken  out  of  it. 
"  One  crowded  hour  of  glorious  life  "  is 
worth  more  than  sluggish  years. 

Life  gets  its  value  from  death,  for 
through  death  the  infinite  continually 
breaks  in  upon  the  finite  and  the  immortal 
shines  in  upon  the  mortal.  For  death  is 
not  interruption  but  fulfillment  of  life, 
and  the  cross,  the  symbol  of  sacrifice  and 
death,  is  the  supreme  discloser  of  God 
the  Father.  In  the  Old  Testament  he  is 
the  Almighty;  on  Calvary  he  is  God  the 
Father  Almighty;  in  the  very  heart  of  the 
storm,  in  the  thickest  darkness,  in  the 
most  heartbreaking  tragedy,  the  love  of 
the  Father  finds  its  hour  of  supreme 
revelation;  and  not  the  Mountain  of  the 
Beatitudes  but  the  Mountain  of  the  Cruci 
fixion  shines  with  a  light  above  that  of 
the  sun. 

271 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

In  the  story  with  which  the  preacher 
ended,  the  French  peasant  looks  back 
across  the  little  village  and  sees  the  great 
crucifix,  from  which  the  Lord  had  de 
scended  to  talk  with  him,  and  as  it  stands, 
clearly  defined  against  the  evening  sky,  he 
suddenly  sees  that  it  is  the  plus  sign  glo 
riously  expanded  to  become  the  symbol  of 
the  vastness  and  richness  of  life. 


272 


Going  Home 

THERE  is  no  picture  which  touches 
the  hearts  of  men  more  closely  or 
tenderly  than  the  figure  of  the  tired  man 
or  woman  going  home  at  the  end  of  the 
day.  The  fierce  heat  of  the  sun  has 
passed,  the  intense  high  light  of  midday 
has  softened  into  a  restful  glow,  the 
strain  of  effort  is  over,  and  the  passion 
of  work  has  given  place  to  the  peace  of 
deserted  fields  and  streets.  It  was  a 
normal  instinct  which  sent  the  worker 
forth,  eager  and  alert,  in  the  morning; 
it  is  the  response  to  a  deep  craving  which 
sends  him  home  at  nightfall.  The  re 
ward  of  labor  is  the  rest  which  it  achieves, 
and  the  joy  of  rest  is  the  sense  that  it  has 
been  earned. 

The  alternation  of  day  and  night  is  a 
symbol  of  the  order  of  life  in  which  work 
and  rest  succeed  one  another  in  a  beau 
tiful    and    health-giving    rhythm.     The 
273 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

worker  goes  out  of  himself  when  he  takes 
up  his  tools;  he  returns  to  himself  when 
he  lays  them  down  at  the  end  of  the  day. 
He  pours  out  his  vitality  as  the  water 
pours  out  of  a  hidden  spring;  if  he  is  a 
real  worker  and  not  a  mere  drudge,  he 
gives  himself  in  the  toil  of  his  hand  and 
his  brain,  and  when  night  falls  his  weari 
ness  is  not  mere  fatigue  of  body,  it  is  de 
pletion  of  vitality.  Before  he  can  give 
himself  again  he  must  find  himself;  and 
when  one  goes  home  he  finds  himself. 

To  a  vast  multitude  of  men  the  thought 
of  going  home  makes  the  heaviest  burdens 
bearable,  the  most  crushing  responsibili 
ties  a  spur  to  effort,  the  most  complete 
surrender  of  ease  and  pleasure,  not  a  sac 
rifice,  but  a  price  gladly  paid  for  a  happi 
ness  which  is  beyond  price.  The  strain 
of  the  day  is  forgotten  at  the  door  which 
opens  into  the  peace  of  perfect  under 
standing,  the  pressure  of  hours  and  tasks 
is  relaxed  by  the  sound  of  a  voice  which 
is  musical  with  love  and  faith  and  peace. 
In  such  a  homecoming  there  is  not  only 
274 


Going  Home 

the  supreme  reward  for  the  work  of  the 
day  that  is  ended;  there  is  also  the  re 
newal  of  strength  and  courage  for  the 
day  that  is  to  bring  new  strife  and  toil. 

The  joy  of  going  home  is  not  in  the 
ease  and  comfort  that  are  waiting  there; 
it  is  in  the  peace  that  flows  from  love,  the 
stillness  that  follows  the  tumult  of  storm, 
the  clear  atmosphere  in  which  the  dust  of 
the  highway  is  laid  and  the  worker  sees 
again  the  ends  for  which  he  is  striving;  in 
the  quietness  of  such  a  home  the  toil  of 
life  is  not  only  sweetened  but  its  spiritual 
meaning  shines  clear  again  after  the  con 
fusion  of  details  has  vanished.  Under 
the  heat  and  burden  of  the  day  the  strong 
est  man  sometimes  wonders  if  life  means 
anything  but  prolonged  strain  of  muscle 
and  brain;  in  the  stillness  of  home  its 
blurred  ends,  its  ultimate  achievements, 
shine  like  the  stars  above  the  highway 
when  the  dust  has  been  laid. 

The  home  is  not  primarily  a  place  for 
work  but  for  life ;  work  lies  below  and  be 
yond  it,  but  the  companionship  which 
275 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

transforms  a  house  into  a  home  is  a  shar 
ing  of  the  rewards  of  work:  freedom, 
repose,  refreshment,  vision.  There  are 
houses  full  of  conveniences  and  luxuries 
in  which  no  one  is  at  home ;  the  men  and 
women  who  live  in  them  are  homeless. 
To  such  men  and  women,  as  to  the  men 
and  women  to  whom  marriage  is  a  mere 
social  contract  and  the  family  a  mere  so 
cial  arrangement,  there  is  no  going  home, 
no  refuge  for  the  spirit,  no  place  of  un 
derstanding  and  vision.  There  are  no 
more  pathetic  figures  in  the  world  of  to 
day  than  these  homeless  men  and  women; 
restless,  discontented,  and  unhappy,  and 
utterly  blind  to  the  tragedy  of  a  life  in 
which  there  is  no  going  home. 


276 


The  Mystery  of  Heaven 

THE  imagination  cannot  go  far  ahead 
of  experience;  it  can  travel  simply 
along  routes  only  faintly  marked  by  ad 
venturous  explorers,  but  it  always  needs 
a  starting-point,  and  it  cannot  project 
paths  into  wholly  unknown  regions.  The 
word  "  unimaginable  "  suggests  the  limit 
ation  of  the  creative,  pictorial  faculty 
which  has  made  progress  possible  and  is 
the  open  door  through  which,  as  Dr. 
Bushnell  said,  God  finds  access  to  men. 
It  is  significant  that  all  attempts  to  de 
scribe  Heaven  end  in  a  luminous  vague 
ness,  while  Hell  and  Purgatory  have  been 
not  only  suggested  but  pictured  with 
terrifying  and  convincing  power.  Dante 
walks  the  awful  paths  of  Hell  with  com 
manding  authority;  he  not  only  sees  and 
understands,  but  he  describes  and  in 
terprets,  the  world  of  punishment  with 
compelling  power.  And  in  the  world  of 
277 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

purification,  though  less  dramatic  and 
realistic,  he  is  not  less  at  home;  he  knows 
whence  flow  the  tears  of  Purgatory.  But 
when  the  gates  of  Paradise  open  to  his 
unaccustomed  feet,  the  sight  is  too  daz 
zling;  he  cannot  see  for  the  unfamiliar 
brightness;  he  speaks  as  one  in  a  half-re 
membered  dream.  His  vision  has  trav 
eled  far  beyond  his  experience.  Sin  he 
knows,  and  remorse  and  pain  and  tears 
he  understands,  but  he  cannot  grasp  the 
bliss  of  Heaven;  he  walks  with  faltering 
step  in  "  worlds  not  realized." 

The  Milton  of  "  Paradise  Lost  "  is  a 
greater  poet  than  the  Milton  of  "  Para 
dise  Regained  ";  and  the  Bible,  the  most 
concrete  and  definite  of  books  in  dealing 
with  the  deep  things  of  God  and  with  the 
mysteries  of  man's  life,  in  the  infrequent 
references  to  Heaven  takes  refuge  in  a 
symbolism  which  the  Western  reader 
often  mistakes  for  pictorial  imagery,  and 
is  rather  hindered  than  helped  by  what  he 
reads.  In  literature  the  great  sinner  is 
far  more  powerfully  drawn  than  the  great 
278 


The  Mystery  of  Heaven 

saint,  and  the  most  pathetic  and  appealing 
figures  in  the  drama  and  in  fiction  are  the 
men  and  women  who,  by  breaking  the 
law,  have  set  in  motion  the  tremendous 
tragic  forces.  The  great  artist  finds  his 
imagination  reinforced  and  energized  by 
experience  when  he  deals  with  Satan, 
with  Agamemnon,  with  Faust,  with  Rich 
ard  III ;  but  his  skill  falters  when  he  tries 
to  paint  a  Saint  John  or  a  Galahad.  Sin 
we  know,  and  all  the  tragic  consequences 
that  follow  it  in  inevitable  companion 
ship  ;  but  the  peace  which  flows  from  per 
fect  purity,  the  radiance  that  shines,  as 
the  old  painters  saw,  from  the  faces  of 
the  sinless,  the  bliss  that  waits  for  those 
who  stand  at  home  in  the  presence  of  God 
like  happy  children,  lie  beyond  our  ex 
perience;  and,  try  as  we  may,  we  cannot 
give  them  form  or  body.  When  we  try, 
we  become  irreverent  and  take  refuge  in 
a  kind  of  sentimental  materialism,  or  the 
Heaven  we  picture  is  a  golden  cloud  on 
the  edge  of  the  horizon  or  a  shining  dome 
hanging  unsupported  in  midair. 
879 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

The  world  of  punishment  and  of  puri 
fication  we  know,  but  the  world  of  bliss 
we  not  only  do  not  know,  but  it  cannot 
be  revealed  to  us;  that  is  the  reason  why 
the  longings  of  the  heart  are  not  met, 
and  the  cry  of  the  soul  for  power  to 
realize  the  surroundings  of  those  who 
have  gone  on  into  the  next  stage  of  life 
is  not  answered:  we  are  not  told  because 
we  could  not  understand.  A  description 
of  the  heavenly  life  by  one  who  was  in  the 
heart  of  it  would  come  to  us  in  an  un 
known  tongue;  nothing  in  our  experience 
would  interpret  it  to  us.  It  does  not  lie 
even  in  the  power  of  the  Heavenly  Father 
to  make  these  mysteries  plain  to  us,  as  it 
does  not  lie  in  our  power  to  make  clear  to 
the  little  children  we  love  the  principles 
of  philosophy,  the  more  abstract  truths  of 
science,  the  revelations  of  ripe  Christian 
experience. 

We  can  know  the  direction  of  the  paths 
which  lead  us  to  that  highest  plane  of 
living  which  we  call  Heaven,  but  we  can 
not  see  the  paths;  we  can  know  the  ele- 
280 


The  Mystery  of  Heaven 

ments  out  of  which  the  heavenly  happi 
ness  is  compounded,  but  we  cannot  visual 
ize  the  conditions  in  which  that  happiness 
is  shared;  we  can  neither  give  power  and 
shape  to  the  spirits  of  those  who  have  de 
parted,  nor  dimensions  and  body  to  the 
things  which  surround  them.  All  the  re 
ports  of  these  things  which  credulous  peo 
ple  are  asked  to  believe  are  crude,  ma 
terialistic,  or  so  vague  that  they  have  only 
the  substance  of  a  dream. 

Heaven  is  beyond  our  power  of  ima 
gination,  not  because  it  is  unreal,  but  be 
cause  it  is  a  higher  reality  not  yet  grasped 
by  the  mind.  All  life  predicts  it;  punish 
ment  and  purification  foretell  and  affirm 
it;  but  it  waits  on  our  fuller  experience  to 
reveal  it.  Mr.  Beecher  has  somewhere 
said  that  knowledge  is  given  us  in  this 
life,  not  to  satisfy  intellectual  curiosity, 
but  to  aid  in  the  development  of  charac 
ter;  and  Heaven,  which  rests  immovable 
on  character  both  divine  and  human, 
comes  at  the  end  of  a  process  not  of  think 
ing  but  o£  living;  that  is  what  makes  it 
281  ' 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

more  real  than  the  things  we  know,  more 
substantial  and  enduring  than  the  things 
we  paint  and  carve  and  describe.  When 
the  scientist  begins  to  experiment  with  a 
short  circuit  of  wire,  he  may  dream  of 
the  time  when  messages  will  travel  under 
great  seas  along  thousands  of  miles  of 
cable;  he  cannot  foresee  the  hour  when 
they  will  fly  through  the  air  itself.  That 
vision  will  come  only  when  he  has  mas 
tered  the  resources  of  the  wire  and  his 
experience  has  given  his  imagination  a 
new  vantage  ground  for  further  flight. 


aft* 


The  Possibility  of  Great  Giving 

THE  best  gifts  are  never  things;  the 
best  gift  is  always  from  within  and 
is  charged  with  personality.  In  the  case 
of  those  who  are  able  to  make  great  gifts 
for  the  highest  purposes  —  for  the  teach 
ing  of  religion,  the  discovery  of  truth, 
the  opening  of  the  doors  to  education  — 
it  is  often  true  that  the  spirit  behind  the 
gift  is  more  valuable  to  the  community 
than  the  gift  itself,  and  the  example  far 
more  influential  in  the  long  run  than  the 
great  sum  of  money  bestowed.  The 
highest  service  a  man  can  render  to  his 
fellows  is  some  bestowal  of  himself  in 
sacrifice,  work,  influence,  inspiration. 
Phillips  Brooks  founded  no  college  and 
endowed  no  hospital,  but  he  is  to  be 
counted  among  the  greatest  givers  of  his 
time.  Other  men  poured  out  wealth  lav 
ishly  for  good  and  great  ends  and  are 
worthy  of  all  honor  for  their  large- 
283 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

minded  and  large-hearted  recognition  of 
the  mutuality  of  all  possessions,  the  com 
mon  fortune  of  the  race,  held  in  trust  by 
the  few  for  the  liberation  and  education 
of  the  many.  It  was  the  high  privilege 
of  the  great  preacher  to  give  himself  with 
the  prodigality  of  a  man  possessed  of  a 
vast  treasure;  to  pour  himself  out  year 
after  year  on  the  spirits  of  confused,  way 
ward,  starving  people,  to  whom  he  gave  a 
vision  beyond  the  perplexities  of  the  hour, 
a  clear  view  of  the  right  path  and 
strength  to  walk  in  it,  the  bread  which 
feeds  the  soul. 

The  Great  Giver  brought  no  money, 
clothes,  or  food  with  him.  No  man  ever 
had  less  at  his  command  of  those  things 
of  which  men  usually  make  gifts;  he  was, 
during  the  wonderful  years  of  his  active 
life,  penniless  and  homeless;  but  he  was 
incomparably  the  greatest  giver  who  has 
appeared  among  men.  No  one  of  all 
the  great  benefactors  of  mankind  has 
approached  him  in  the  reach,  power,  and 
eternal  value  of  his  gifts.  The  secret  of 
284 


The  Possibility  of  Great  Giving 

his  divine  generosity  is  told  in  a  sentence : 
he  was  himself  a  gift!  It  was  not  the 
separate  and  detached  gifts  he  made  by 
the  way  —  the  healing,  the  hearing,  the 
speech,  the  loaves  and  fishes  —  that 
clothed  him  with  compassion  and  benefi 
cence  like  a  garment  from  the  very  hem 
of  which  life  and  peace  flowed;  it  was  the 
complete  and  perfect  bestowal  of  himself 
that  has  begun  to  fill  the  world  with  light 
and  health  and  love. 

Here  is  the  supreme  reward  of  growth 
in  purity,  unselfishness,  the  wisdom  of 
love:  it  so  greatly  enriches  the  spirit  that 
he  who  comes  to  possess  these  beautiful 
and  divine  qualities  gains  the  privileges 
of  a  great  giver.  Many  men  and  women 
are  perfectly  sincere  in  desiring  great 
wealth  that  they  might  use  it  generously 
for  others.  But  great  wealth  comes  to 
few,  while  the  inward  enrichment  comes 
to  all  who  invite  and  hold  themselves 
open  to  it.  Every  man  may  become  a 
great  giver  if  he  chooses;  for  every  man 
may  make  himself  rich  in  the  vision,  the 
285 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

moral  strength,  the  peace  of  spirit,  which 
are  the  supreme  achievements  of  life,  and 
the  most  inspiring,  comforting,  enduring 
things  which  a  man  can  bestow  on  his 
fellows. 


286 


The  Long  View  of  Life 

A  YOUNG  man  gets  a  position  in  a 
business  of  some  kind,  and  secures 
his  opportunity,  which  is  all  he  has  a  right 
to  ask  for.  There  are  two  ways  in  which 
he  can  deal  with  it:  He  can  do  his  work 
honestly  day  by  day  for  his  wages  at  the 
end  of  the  week,  filling  up  exactly  the 
measure  of  work  assigned  to  him.  This 
will  make  him  a  trustworthy  employee, 
who  can  be  counted  on  to  do  conscien 
tiously  what  he  is  told  to  do ;  he  becojnes 
a  good  soldier  in  the  army  of  workers. 
Or  (and  this  is  the  turning-point  in  his 
career)  he  can  fill  the  measure  to  over 
flowing,  pouring  all  his  intelligence  and 
energy  into  it,  without  much  thought  of 
the  amount  he  is  to  be  paid.  If  he 
chooses  this  way,  he  presently  gets  out  of 
the  ranks  and  becomes  a  leader,  a  cap 
tain  in  the  army  of  workers. 

He  may  be  satisfied  with  doing  well 
287 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

what  falls  to  him  each  day,  or  he  may 
push  on  by  mastering  the  details  of  his 
business,  making  himself  familiar  with 
every  part  of  it,  and  fitting  himself  for 
steady  advancement  by  keeping  ahead  of 
the  work  required  of  him.  Most  men 
are  content  with  what  comes  to  them,  and 
remain  employees;  a  few  make  them 
selves  masters  of  the  secrets,  methods, 
and  conditions  of  their  business  and  be 
come  employers.  A  man  fixes  his  place 
in  life  by  the  amount  of  time  and  work  he 
is  willing  to  put  into  preparation  for 
larger  tasks  and  greater  responsibilities. 

In  this  country  few  young  men  need  to 
be  urged  to  work  harder;  for  work  al 
ready  fills  an  immoderate  and  excessive 
portion  of  the  time  of  most  Americans. 
But  young  men  and  older  men  in  this 
country  need  to  be  urged  to  plan  their 
work  on  longer  lines  and  to  do  it  with 
greater  intelligence.  One  of  the  most 
interesting  directions  which  scientific  ex 
periment  is  taking  to-day  is  that  of  inten 
sive  farming;  this  means,  not  adding  acre 
288 


The  Long  View  of  Life 

to  acre,  but  doubling  and  quadrupling  the 
yielding  capacity  of  the  acres  under  culti 
vation.  And  this  is  supplemented  in  the 
business  world,  especially  in  the  great  in 
dustries,  by  the  scientific  management  of 
business,  the  end  of  which  is,  by  more  in 
telligent  methods  of  work,  to  reduce  the 
labor  and  at  the  same  time  greatly  in 
crease  production.  These  two  principles 
every  young  man  ought  to  study:  how, 
without  additional  work,  he  can  get  more 
effective  work  out  of  himself;  how,  with 
out  the  expenditure  of  increased  force,  he 
can  make  himself  more  fruitful. 

The  vital  defect  of  the  young  man  who 
plans  his  work  for  the  day  instead  of  for 
the  decade  is  that  he  works  like  an  arti 
san  instead  of  like  an  artist;  he  does  what 
is  set  before  him  and  obeys  orders  instead 
of  looking  ahead  and  making  himself  an 
expert.  He  does  not  apply  ideas  to  his 
work,  but  pursues  it  in  routine  fashion, 
without  individuality  of  method.  The 
problem  which  the  young  man  who  is  to 
be  successful,  not  only  in  the  practical 
289 


,     Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

but  in  the  fuller  and  nobler  sense  of  the 
term,  must  face,  is  to  reduce  the  expendi 
ture  of  physical  and  nervous  strain  while 
increasing  his  productivity  and  bringing 
out  of  himself  the  finer  fruits  which  scien 
tific  methods  have  developed.  There  is 
an  enormous  undeveloped  force  in  the 
human  race  that  some  day,  by  more  thor 
ough  training  and  more  intelligent  use  of 
faculties,  will  be  at  the  service  of  human 
ity.  As  we  are  now  drawing  energy 
from  the  air  and  the  earth  to  do  the  work 
and  carry  the  burdens  of  humanity,  so 
some  day  we  shall  draw  from  the  unused 
and  ill-directed  capacity  of  men  a  finer 
and  greater  efficiency.  The  end  of  life 
is  not  to  toil  like  a  slave,  but  to  work  like 
a  free  man,  with  a  vision  of  what  one 
means  to  do  with  one's  life,  with  intelli 
gence  of  method,  with  concentration  of 
power. 


290 


An  Easter  Thought 
The  Light  of  Life 

THERE  is  no  record  of  the  earliest 
appearance  of  the  idea  of  immor 
tality;  it  is  older  than  the  oldest  history. 
For  many  centuries  men  have  known  that 
death  was  an  illusion  —  somber,  appal 
ling,  often  heartbreaking,  but  neverthe 
less  an  illusion;  not  the  end  of  the  drama, 
but  the  darkening  of  the  stage  while  the 
scenes  are  shifted  that  another  act  may 
begin  under  a  fairer  sky  in  a  happier 
country.  In  the  far-off  past,  when  men 
were  looking  at  the  world  for  the  first 
time  with  conscious  intelligence,  they 
knew  that  those  who  went  out  of  their 
homes  did  not  go  out  of  existence,  but 
waited,  dim  and  shadowy,  on  the  bound 
aries  of  human  life,  or  haunted  invisibly 
the  places  they  loved,  or  lingered,  melan 
choly  and  hopeless,  but  still  conscious,  in 
worlds  as  shadowy  as  themselves.  In 
the  beautiful  fancy  of  the  Japanese,  those 
291 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

who  have  vanished  from  the  ways  of  life 
come  back  at  times  to  their  old  homes, 
bringing  a  deep  and  tender  peace  with 
them.  To  them,  as  to  the  Chinese,  the 
worship  of  ancestors  means  that  the  dead 
have  not  only  not  ceased  to  be,  but  have 
gone  over  to  join  the  greater  and  freer 
spirits  who  live  the  larger  and  diviner 
life.  The  Greek  saw  in  every  return  of 
spring,  when  the  tide  of  life  came  flood 
ing  back,  the  hint  and  sign  of  immortality, 
and  treasured  his  great  hope  behind  the 
veil  of  the  mysteries  into  which  only  the 
initiated  were  admitted.  Savage  and 
highly  developed  races  have  shared  alike 
in  the  revelation  of  immortality,  and 
every  race,  according  to  its  insight  and 
culture,  has  given  form  and  speech  to  this 
sublime  idea.  The  belief  in  what  the 
scientists  call  the  persistence  of  force  is 
apparently  instinctive;  men  do  not  con 
ceive  of  an  end  of  the  power  they  feel 
within  themselves  until  they  have  become 
cynical  or  introspective  or  critical  in  their 
attitude  toward  life. 

292 


An  Easter  Thought 

The  pale  figure  which  haunted  the  an 
tique  imagination  dimmed  the  light  but 
did  not  extinguish  it;  the  living  knew  that 
those  who  had  parted  from  them,  and 
whose  ashes  were  piously  guarded  in 
memorial  urns,  could  still  be  reached  and 
affected  by  the  affection  and  devotion  of 
the  living.  Antigone,  the  type  of  sisterly 
self-sacrifice,  faced  death  that  she  might 
give  her  brother's  shade  rest;  and 
Ulysses  talked  in  the  underworld  with  the 
heroes  who  fell  by  his  side  on  the  plain  of 
Troy.  The  morbid  and  saddened  ima 
gination  of  the  Middle  Ages  saw  death  as 
a  grim  and  repulsive  skeleton,  the  touch 
of  whose  icy  hand  meant  the  passing  of 
earthly  happiness,  the  solitary  journey  of 
Everyman,  the  awful  loneliness  of  the 
descent  into  the  grave,  the  judgment  seat 
beyond. 

To  the  freer  modern  mind,  in  the 
fuller  and  richer  modern  life,  death  is 
no  pale  ghost  summoning  the  living  to 
leave  the  light  and  warmth  of  the  sun 
and  wander  disconsolate  along  the  bound- 
293 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

aries  of  being;  no  grim  and  ghastly  skele 
ton  coming  unbidden  to  the  feast  and  in 
the  happiest  hour  summoning  the  trem 
bling  spirit  to  its  last  accounting.  The 
dim  shadow  and  the  terrible  destroyer 
have  vanished,  and  in  their  place  has 
come  the  great,  benignant,  mysterious  fig 
ure  of  Mr.  Watts's  "  Love  and  Death." 
The  passionate  defense  of  Love,  wild 
with  grief,  cannot  hold  the  door  against 
the  irresistible  strength  of  the  messenger; 
but  in  that  great  form,  towering  above 
the  helpless  defender,  pressing  upon  the 
door  with  a  purpose  that  cannot  be 
stayed,  there  is  no  malice,  no  antagonism; 
there  is  a  noble  dignity  as  of  one  come  • 
from  heaven,  the  minister  of  an  authority 
to  which  all  doors  must  open,  and  of  a 
wisdom  as  tender  as  it  is  fathomless,  by 
which  the  immortal  spirits  of  men  are 
forever  guarded  from  harm.  "  You  may 
kill  us,"  said  an  early  Christian  martyr, 
"  but  you  cannot  harm  us."  There  is 
often  heartrending  sorrow  in  death,  for  it 
brings  appalling  loneliness  with  it;  but 
294 


An  Easter  Thought 

there  is  peace,  fulfillment,  the  joy  of  the 
perfect  life. 

What  men  in  the  earliest  stages  dimly 
divined,  and  men  of  a  larger  culture 
hoped  for  and  expressed  in  noble  dreams, 
Christ  brought  to  light.  Death  was  as 
much  of  an  illusion  before  as  after  his 
resurrection;  but  that  which  was  vaguely 
felt  or  poetically  conceived  became,  in  his 
triumph  over  the  grave,  a  historical  fact 
which  transformed  a  little  group  of  weak, 
vacillating  men,  who  shared  the  moral 
blindness  of  their  race,  into  a  company  of 
heroes  eager  to  bear  witness  in  all  places 
and  ready  to  face  death  in  all  forms. 
They  hoped  and  dreamed  no  more;  they 
knew,  and  in  the  certainty  of  their  knowl 
edge  they  spoke  as  those  who  had  put 
their  fingers  into  the  places  where  the 
spear  pierced  and  the  nails  were  driven, 
who  had  heard  the  voice  speaking  that  for 
three  long  days  was  silent,  and  had  seen 
him  walking  who  was  wrapped  in  grave- 
clothes  and  laid  in  a  sepulcher. 

In  their  early  conscious  life  men  felt 
295 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

that  they  were  not  born  to  die,  and  that 
death  was  not  an  ending  but  a  changing 
of  the  course,  because  they  were  dimly 
conscious  of  the  indestructible  force 
within  them.  In  every  later  age  men 
have  been  compelled  to  make  the  same 
great  inference  to  satisfy  reason  and  to 
appease  the  heart;  for  if  we  are  but  the 
dust  of  the  earth  become  conscious  for 
a  time,  life  and  the  world  are  alike  in 
comprehensible.  In  these  later  days  a 
deeper  process  of  thought  and  a  wider 
observation  have  affirmed  that  no  force 
ceases  to  be.  And  One  has  lived  who 
died  as  all  men  die  and  was  buried,  and 
came  out  of  the  sepulcher  not  only  with 
the  light  of  life  undimmed  within  him, 
but  so  visibly  holy  and  immortal  that  they 
who  were  most  familiar  with  him  fell  at 
his  feet  and  worshiped  him. 

The  light  has  come,  and  the  faint  stars 
of  early  hope  and  dream  have  faded  from 
the  sky;  but  mists  and  shadows  still  linger 
about  the  places  where  men  toil  and  suf 
fer,  and  many  who  sit  in  the  darkness 
296 


An  Easter  Thought 

of  closed  rooms  and  silent  homes  cannot, 
at  the  moment,  see  the  brightness  of  the 
sky  above  them.  Not  until  the  first  long 
hours  of  loneliness  have  passed  will  they 
open  the  windows  and  doors  and  look  up 
at  the  heavens.  On  every  Easter  day 
there  is  a  new  group  of  mourners,  for 
there  are  newly  made  graves  over  the 
whole  earth.  To  those  who  cannot  hear 
the  notes  of  joy  in  the  Easter  bells  for 
memory  of  the  recent  sorrow  these  tones 
bring  with  them,  the  Christ  comes,  not 
with  reproach,  but  with  infinite  patience 
and  tenderness.  He  knew  not  only  the 
victory  at  the  tomb,  but  also  the  sadness 
of  Gethsemane;  he  remembers  that 
human  hearts,  with  all  their  weakness, 
have  also  the  power  of  deathless  affec 
tion.  He  knows  that  while  to  him  the 
hope  of  immortality  is  a  massive  cause 
way  glowing  with  lights  spanning  the 
blackness  of  the  river,  to  us  it  is  a  crossing 
of  stepping-stones,  of  which  we  see  but 
one  at  a  time  as  we  pass  down  into  the 
darkness  and  mystery  of  the  stream  which 
none  save  he  has  ever  recrossed. 
297 


The  Path  to  God 

THE  endeavor  to  get  the  results  of 
religious  living  without  going 
through  the  processes,  to  secure  posses 
sion  of  the  fruits  of  character  without  en 
during  the  discipline,  is  renewed  in  every 
generation;  and  the  long  and  unbroken 
history  of  defeats  does  not  seem  to  ex 
haust  the  credulity  of  men  and  women. 
We  are  willing  to  do  everything  except 
work  out  our  salvation.  We  want  a 
royal  road  to  faith;  are  not  willing  to  take 
the  long,  quiet  path  which  is  open  to  each 
one  of  us.  We  long  for  a  great  and  final 
vision  of  God.  We  are  eager  for  a  com 
plete  and  permanent  settlement  of  all  our 
doubts.  At  the  beginning  of  the  journey 
we  want  the  enlargement,  liberation,  and 
certainty  which  can  be  found  only  at  the 
end.  We  forget  the  significance  of  the 
divine  commendation,  "  Well  done,  good 
and  faithful  servant."  We  change  it  to 
298 


The  Path  to  God 

read,  "  Well  thought,"  or  "  Well  felt, 
good  and  faithful  servant !  "  We  want 
to  feel  the  presence  of  God.  We  want 
to  be  able  to  think  our  way  to  him  in  per 
fect  clearness.  We  are  not  willing,  hour 
by  hour,  day  by  day,  year  by  year,  with 
infinite  patience,  to  so  enlarge  ourselves 
by  work  and  life  that  we  shall  be  fitted  to 
stand  in  his  presence  and  great  enough 
to  realize  him  in  our  thought.  We  want 
strength,  but  we  are  not  willing  to  exer 
cise;  we  simply  wish  to  pray  for  it.  We 
want  peace,  but  we  are  not  ready  to  set 
our  lives  in  order.  We  want  trust  and 
that  quiet  faith  which  is  the  source  of 
joy  and  happiness,  but  we  are  not  willing 
to  gain  faith  in  the  one  way  in  which  it 
can  be  gained  —  by  patient  continuance 
in  well  doing. 

It  is  not  by  thinking  or  feeling,  but  by 
doing  —  that  is  to  say,  by  actual  experi 
ence  —  that  we  get  the  knowledge  and  the 
command  of  ourselves.  And  there  is 
no  other  way.  We  create  ourselves  by 
translating  our  feeling  into  thought  and 
299 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

our  thought  into  action.  There  is  noth 
ing  more  striking  in  life  than  the  gather 
ing  of  lines  in  a  man's  face  as  the  result 
of  a  great  experience  and  a  fine  work  well 
done  —  the  unformed  face  chiseled  by 
work  into  a  strikingly  significant  counte 
nance.  For  a  man's  countenance  is  the 
face  which  nature  gave  him,'  molded  by 
his  own  ideals  and  toil.  The  sculptor 
does  not  more  certainly  evoke  a  face  out 
of  stone  by  the  tireless  strokes  of  his 
chisel  than  the  man  evokes  his  force,  in 
telligence,  and  will  out  of  himself  by  bear 
ing  the  burdens  and  doing  the  work  of 
life.  You  cannot  tell  him  in  advance 
what  he  is;  he  cannot  know  himself  what 
he  is.  He  must  find  himself  through 
work.  The  aspiration  of  the  boy  who 
dreams  of  the  mastery  of  art  is  a  mere 
desire  until  he  learns  the  use  of  the  brush, 
the  secrets  of  color,  the  control  of  his 
hands.  The  half-conscious  energy  of  the 
youth  who  feels  that  the  elements  that 
will  make  him  a  great  man  of  affairs  are 
in  him  is  a  mere  promise  until  he  has 
300 


The  Path  to  God 

taken  hold  of  some  kind  of  business  and 
measured  himself  against  men.  The 
only  road  to  self-knowledge  and  power 
lies  through  feeling  and  thinking  into 
action.  In  action  or  experience  only  the 
man  is  wrought;  there,  and  there  only,  he 
comes  face  to  face  with  himself. 

By  action  we  not  only  create  ourselves, 
but  we  create  God  for  ourselves.  The 
anchorite  finds  him  in  no  other  way;  for 
his  seclusion  is  in  itself  an  act.  The 
saint  finds  him  in  no  other  way;  for  self- 
denial,  purity,  and  consecration  are  deeds^ 
not  feelings  or  thoughts.  Truth  is  slowly 
distilled  into  men's  hearts;  for  living  is 
not  primarily  an  intellectual,  but  a  vital, 
process,  and  the  greatest  truths  have 
come  into  the  world,  not  through  the  door 
of  the  brain,  but  through  the  door  of  the 
heart.  Love  and  loyalty,  temptation  and 
sin,  self-denial  and  redemption,  entered 
into  the  thoughts  of  men  not  by  way  of 
the  philosophers  but  by  the  path  that  runs 
through  every  man's  heart.  We  have 
come  to  know  the  greatest  things  because 
301 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

our  hearts  have  been  pierced  by  the  great 
and  terrible  facts  of  life.  Carlyle  and 
Tennyson  were  once  looking  at  the  busts 
of  Dante  and  Goethe  in  a  shop  window  in 
London.  "  What  is  there  in  D'ante's 
face  that  is  not  in  Goethe's?  "  asked  Car 
lyle.  "  The  Divine,"  was  Tennyson's 
prompt  answer.  That  sense  of  the  pres 
ence  of  the  Infinite  in  all  human  affairs 
which  gives  Dante's  face  its  wonderful 
impressiveness  came  not  through  thought 
only  but  through  experience.  It  was 
born  of  solitude,  deprivation,  isolation, 
banishment.  It  came  to  him  on  the 
lonely  stairs  in  the  houses  of  strangers; 
it  was  revealed  to  him  in  the  breaking  of 
bread  in  an  alien  land.  So  came  to 
Shakespeare  the  insight  which,  in  the  later 
plays,  brought  into  clear  view  the  higher 
processes  of  character  and  revealed  such 
a  deep  and  beautiful  vision  of  life;  so 
came  Phillips  Brooks's  power  of  minis 
tering  to  men  and  women  of  all  degrees 
of  experience  and  culture. 

Life  itself  is  the  teacher  of  the  proph- 
302 


The  Path  to  God 

ets  and  poets,  the  saints  and  martyrs. 
We  cannot  silence  our  doubts  by  thinking, 
we  cannot  find  God  by  searching;  but 
we  can  do  his  will,  and  then  we  shall  know 
his  doctrine.  We  create  God  for  our 
selves,  and  we  create  ourselves  by  action, 
by  passing  through  feeling  to  thought  into 
the  world  of  deeds.  We  keep  in  his 
presence  by  doing  the  work  and  living  the 
life  of  faith.  There  is  no  baffling  mys 
tery  about  all  this;  for  the  clouds  and 
darkness  which  surround  a  man  do  not 
make  the  path  at  his  feet  invisible  or  un 
certain;  and  that  path  leads  through 
rough  places  and  smooth,  sometimes  in 
light  and  sometimes  in  darkness,  to  the 
summit.  All  that  a  man  needs  to  do  is  to 
keep  his  feet  in  it.  The  road  is  as  open 
to  the  humblest  as  to  the  greatest;  and  the 
most  obscure  often  find  themselves  on 
those  higher  peaks  where  the  divine 
vision  is  most  distinct. 


303 


The  Peace  of  Christ 

THE  peace  of  God  is  not  only  a 
familiar  but  a  comprehensible 
phrase,  for  God  is  not  only  all-wise  but 
all-powerful,  and  is  therefore  above  all 
the  momentary  storms,  the  passing  strug 
gles,  which  sweep  the  world  with  a  brief 
fury  or  trouble  the  souls  of  men  as  they 
pass  from  one  stage  of  growth  to  another. 
From  the  top  of  a  hill  on  a  summer  day 
one  may  often  watch  the  clouds  gather 
and  sweep  across  the  landscape,  black  and 
ominous,  dropping  bolts  of  fire  as  they 
pass;  while  far  behind  the  brief  rage  of 
the  tempest  and  far  ahead  of  it  lie  smil 
ing  fields  and  men  at  work  in  them,  and 
overhead  the  heavens  abide  in  undimmed 
splendor  of  light.  So  God  abides  above 
the  changes  of  tides  and  times,  the  forces 
of  air  and  earth  striving  for  harmony 
through  continual  readjustment  of  con 
ditions. 

304 


The  Peace  of  Christ 

But  the  peace  of  Christ  is  more  diffi 
cult  to  understand.     He  was  in  the  very 
center  of  the  storms;  again  and  again  they 
broke  on  his  path;  again  and  again  they 
found   him   solitary   and   without  visible 
shelter.     He  dealt  first,  foremost,  and  al 
ways  with  the  tempests  that  ravage  the 
world;  with  the  awful  blackness  of  sin, 
the  tragic  source  of  half  the  devastating 
storms  that  rage  on  the  earth ;  with  those 
temptations  which  bring  mighty  tossings 
of  the  soul  with  them;  with  the  miseries, 
sorrows,  and  appalling  pains  of  humanity 
which  often  overshadow  the  sensitive  and 
sympathetic   spirit  with   darkness  like   a 
cloud.     The   shadow  of  a   cross  always 
traveled  before  him.     And  yet,   in  the 
center  of  the  storm  of  life,  in  the  very 
path  of  oncoming  tempests,  the  peace  of 
Christ  remained  unbroken.     More  than 
this :  his  peace  was  not  only  sufficient  for 
himself,  it  was  so  deep  and  wide  that  he 
was  eager  to  share  it  with  all  men.     In 
the   heart  of  the   storm  he   could  say, 
"  Peace  I  leave  with  you,  my  peace  I  give 
305 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

unto  you."  If  there  is  one  scene  in  his 
life  which  more  dramatically  than  any 
other  interprets  his  attitude  towards  men, 
it  is  his  quiet  sleep  in  the  storm,  his  calm 
hushing  of  its  fury. 

And  he  told  the  secret  of  his  peace 
when  he  promised  to  leave  it  behind  him 
in  the  world:  "Let  not  your  heart  be 
troubled,  neither  let  it  be  afraid.  ...  I 
go  unto  the  Father."  These  words  were 
spoken  to  men  who  were  only  beginning 
to  understand  the  Master  whose  mighty 
works  and  mightier  words  and  still 
mightier  spirit  they  had  been  learning  for 
almost  three  years.  He  had  told  them 
that  he  was  in  the  Father  and  the  Father 
was  in  him,  and  they  could  get  but  a  faint 
glimmering  of  his  meaning.  If  he  had 
said  that  he  had  never  left  the  Father, 
they  would  not  have  understood,  though 
it  would  have  been  simple  truth.  In  all 
the  vicissitudes  of  his  earthly  life,  alike 
when  he  was  in  the  fellowship  of  Martha 
and  Mary  and  when  he  stood  beside  the 
woman  taken  in  the  very  act  of  sin,  Jesus 
306 


The  Peace  of  Christ 

was  with  his  Father;  the  vileness  of  the 
world  did  not  for  a  moment  separate  the 
Son  from  the  Father;  rather  it  brought 
them  together,  for  where  the  need  was 
greatest  there  the  Christ  was  most  divine; 
where  the  blackness  of  the  tempest  was 
most  appalling  there  the  Light  of  the 
World  shone  most  gloriously. 

In  all  the  storms  through  which  he 
passed  there  is  no  evidence  that  the  heart 
of  Christ  was  ever  troubled,  but  there  is 
evidence  that  it  was  sore  and  sorrowful; 
in  the  presence  of  death  he  was  not  dis 
mayed,  not  even  perplexed ;  but  he  wept ! 
The  peace  he  left  to  those  who  believe  in 
him  is  not  respite  from  the  pains  of  loss 
and  sorrow;  it  is  not  freedom  from  uncer 
tainty,  and  the  trial  of  waiting  for  light 
in  dark  places,  and  for  leading  in  the  con 
fusion  of  the  world.  When  peace  comes 
between  warring  nations,  or  between 
groups  of  men  whose  interests  seem  to  be 
antagonistic,  a  deep  sense  of  rest  and  se 
curity  follows;  but  the  pains  and  burdens 
and  perplexities  of  life  are  not  at  an  end. 
307 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

Peace  does  not  mean  a  solution  of  all  the 
problems;  it  means  the  absence  of  con 
flict  and  the  quietude  in  which  those  prob 
lems  can  be  faced  and  solved.  The  peace 
of  Christ  was  not  escape  from  anxieties 
and  pain;  it  was  a  companionship  with  the 
Father  which  set  at  rest  all  fear,  all 
doubt,  all  conflict  of  wills.  The  Father 
who  was  above  the  storms  and  the  Son 
who  was  in  the  heart  of  them  were  one  in 
spirit,  purpose,  nature;  the  clouds  and 
darkness  did  not  hide  either  from  the 
other.  The  peace  which  Christ  left  for 
us  is  not  freedom  from  sorrow,  from 
pain,  from  uncertainty;  it  is  the  ending  of 
conflict  between  God's  will  and  our  will, 
deliverance  from  fear,  rest  in  the  love  and 
power  of  God. 


308 


*  Character  First 

"QAFETY  first"  is  a  sound  maxim 
O  if  the  meaning  of  safety  is 
clearly  understood.  Where  the  care  of 
human  life  is  the  highest  duty,  the  su 
preme  responsibility,  it  must  be  taken  at 
its  face  value.  On  railways,  trolley  cars, 
in  the  construction  of  buildings  whether 
permanent  or  temporary,  in  steam  naviga 
tion,  in  the  protection  of  water  supplies, 
in  the  regulation  of  traffic  on  the  public 
highways,  the  guarding  of  life  is  para 
mount  to  all  other  duties,  and  the  words 
"  safety  first,"  posted  in  places  where  life 
is  in  peril  from  many  kinds  of  danger, 
form  a  sign  that  this  happy-go-lucky  coun 
try  is  beginning  to  awaken  from  its  in 
dolence  and  carelessness. 

But  in  guarding  the  higher  interests  of 
life  safety  has  a  larger  meaning  than  the 
protection  of  the  body;  it  may,  and  often 
309 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

does,  involve  the  utmost  peril  to  the  body. 
It  has  become  to  many  people  a  maxim 
of  spiritual  degeneration. 

Taken  in  an  absolute  sense,  it  becomes 
a  shield  for  meanness  of  spirit  and  the 
cowardice  which  eats  the  heart  out  of 
character.  Too  many  Americans  have 
changed  the  maxim  to  read  "  comfort 
first;  "  they  demand  that  the  world  shall 
let  them  alone  in  the  endeavor  to  make 
life  easy  and  pleasant;  they  resent  any  in 
terruption  of  what  has  become,  as  the  re 
sult  of  a  great  prosperity,  an  irresponsible 
"  joy  ride."  So  long  as  their  business 
is  not  endangered,  their  homes  threat 
ened,  their  pleasures  menaced,  the  rest  of 
the  world  may  starve  and  suffer  the  tor 
tures  of  fire  and  the  sword.  Other  peo 
ples  may  pour  out  their  blood  like  water 
and  take  up  enormous  burdens  in  defense 
of  the  principles  which  have  made  Amer 
ica  prosperous,  but  these  things  do  not 
concern  the  "  safety-first "  Americans. 
Nothing  touches  them  until  it  disturbs 
their  comfort.  "  Let  us  eat  and  drink 
310 


Character  First 

and  be  merry,"  they  seem  to  say,  "  for 
to-morrow  we  die."  It  is  certain  that  we 
must  all  die,  but  shall  death  be  the  tri 
umph  of  the  spirit  or  the  rotting  of 
the  body?  The  comfort-first  Americans 
need  not  fear  death,  because  they  are  al 
ready  dead;  they  have  sold  themselves 
for  the  mess  of  pottage. 

The  history  of  the  human  race  in  this 
world  has  been  one  sweeping  condemna 
tion  of  the  "  safety-first  "  conception  of 
life.  In  the  sight  of  God,  it  is  evident, 
the  first  principle  of  safety  is  contempt 
for  comfort  and  readiness  to  lay  down 
life  for  a  hundred  things  that  are  a  thou 
sand  times  more  important.  As  it  is  re 
vealed  in  the  structure  of  life  the  will  of 
God  is  expressed  in  the  maxim,  "  Char 
acter  first."  There  is  no  limit  to  the  de 
mands  of  the  Christ  when  character  is  at 
stake;  everything  else  is  mere  dross. 
Life  itself  does  not  count  in  the  balance 
when  character  is  in  the  other  scale. 
There  are  great  joys  by  the  way  in  this 
life,  but  society  will  become  safe  only  as  it 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

becomes  just  and  merciful  and  self-sacri 
ficing. 

This  is  not  a  comfortable  world  in  the 
sense  that  men  may  take  their  ease  in  it, 
and  there  is  no  prospect  that  it  ever  will 
be.  Until  all  men  understand  that  char 
acter  is  the  end  and  the  justification  of  the 
tremendous  education  which  we  call  life, 
ease  and  comfort  will  be  interrupted  and 
destroyed  by  danger,  by  trouble,  by  peril 
of  many  kinds.  To-day  half  the  peoples 
of  Europe  are  fighting  for  liberty  and  the 
privileges  of  spiritual  manhood;  they  are 
dying  by  the  hundreds  of  thousands  and 
they  are  suffering  calamities  which  leave 
the  imagination  aghast  and  helpless.  It 
is  a  fearful  price  to  pay  for  the  things  at 
stake,  but  it  is  not  too  great  a  price. 
Those  who  see  in  the  struggle  only  blind 
fate  and  needless  slaughter  utterly  fail  to 
see  the  moral  grandeur  of  it,  the  divine 
contempt  which  it  pours  on  the  safety-first 
rule  of  living,  the  overwhelming  authority 
with  which  it  asserts  the  "  character- 
first  "  rule  of  living.  Until  men  are 
312 


Character  First 

ready  to  forget  ease,  to  hold  comfort  sub 
ordinate  to  right,  to  be  unselfish  as  well  as 
just,  the  deeps  of  divine  judgment  will  be 
broken  up  from  time  to  time  and  great 
waves  of  disaster  will  roll  over  the  fair 
landscape  of  material  prosperity.  Safety 
will  come  when  character  is  attained,  but 
not  before. 


Meeting  Life  Squarely 

IT  was  recently  said  of  a  prominent  pub 
lic  man  that  if  he  could  evade  a  prob 
lem  he  thought  he  had  solved  it.  This  is 
the  philosophy  of  many  people  whose  en 
deavor  seems  to  be,  not  to  meet  life 
squarely,  but  to  evade  it;  not  to  see  diffi 
cult  situations  clearly  nor  to  deal  with 
them  strongly,  but  to  shut  the  eyes  to  the 
most  ominous  and  perplexing  aspects  and 
to  find  the  easiest  way  out.  This  means, 
of  course,  that  the  real  end  of  living,  the 
education  which  experiences  bring  with 
them  is  entirely  missed,  and  the  main  pur 
pose  of  life  is  defeated.  The  student 
who  becomes  expert  in  the  various  devices 
by  which  the  drudgery  of  learning  is 
evaded  imagines  that  he  is  outwitting  his 
instructors,  but  discovers  in  later  life  that 
he  has  cheated  himself.  The  discipline 
of  education  is  not  the  attempt  of  the 
school  or  the  college  to  benefit  itself.  It 


Meeting  Life  Squarely 

has  been  devised  and  is  imposed  for  the 
sole  purpose  of  helping  the  student. 

The  cares  and  burdens  and  perplexities 
of  life  were  not  devised  to  amuse  an  irre 
sponsible  power.  They  are  wrought  into 
the  very  structure  of  life,  and  are  in 
volved  in  its  most  vital  experiences,  in  or 
der  that  men  and  women  may  be  taught 
the  great  truths  which  are  behind  all  liv 
ing,  and  in  learning  which  the  discipline 
of  living  finds  its  splendid  justification. 
A  proclamation  of  emancipation  may  set 
slaves  and  serfs  free  from  legal  bondage; 
but  this  is  only  the  beginning  of  freedom. 
It  is  only  an  opportunity  to  become  free, 
for  freedom  is  not  a  gift  and  can  never  be 
a  gift;  it  must  always  be  an  achievement. 
A  man  buys  his  freedom  by  restraint,  self- 
denial,  and  work.  To  the  criticism  of 
an  artist  that  he  ought  to  have  done  his 
work  in  another  way,  La  Farge  promptly 
said :  "  That  would  have  been  impos 
sible.  An  artist,  above  all  other  men, 
must  work  out  his  genius  under  laws." 
Neither  in  the  substance  of  his  work  nor 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

in  its  technique  is  he  free.  He  must  ex 
press  his  own  temperament,  and  he  must, 
by  rigorous  discipline  and  tireless  pa 
tience,  master  the  method  by  which  at  last 
he  can  freely  express  himself.  "  Grace," 
said  George  Macdonald,  "  is  the  result  of 
forgotten  toil." 

The  discipline  of  life,  which  many  peo 
ple  resent  as  an  interference  with  their 
right  to  the  pursuit  of  happiness,  is  really, 
if  one  bears  it  patiently  and  meets  it 
frankly,  the  only  way  to  happiness. 

This  is  especially  true  of  such  a  tragic 
period  as  that  through  which  the  world  is 
passing.  The  shadow  of  the  struggle  in 
Flanders  and  the  Balkans  covers  the  land 
scape  of  the  whole  world,  and  even  those 
who  are  willing  to  buy  peace  at  any  price 
cannot  purchase  it.  Try  as  they  may  to 
evade  the  great  and  terrible  experience  by 
shutting  their  eyes  to  it,  it  faces  them  at 
every  turn,  and  the  only  escape  from  it  is 
to  meet  it  bravely  and  to  learn  what  it  has 
to  teach. 

People  are  trying  to  get  away  from  the 


Meeting  Life  Squarely 

tragedy  by  taking  refuge  in  amusements 
of  many  kinds.  Miss  Repplier  has 
pithily  said  that  the  gospel  of  amusement 
"  is  preached  by  people  who  lack  expe 
rience  to  people  who  lack  vitality,"  and 
she  adds  that  there  is  an  impression  that 
the  world  would  be  happy  if  it  were 
amused,  and  that  it  would  be  amused  if 
plenty  of  artificial  recreation  were  pro 
vided  for  it.  Play  of  all  kinds  is  as  neces 
sary  and  legitimate  as  work.  Healthful 
amusements  and  recreations  are  essential  to 
physical  and  spiritual  well-being;  but  they 
must  be  taken  as  tonics,  not  as  anodynes. 
This  country  is  not  escaping  the  war  by 
standing  apart  and  shutting  its  eyes  to  the 
tragedy;  on  the  contrary,  the  war  over 
shadows  every  home  and  lays  a  tax  on 
every  income,  large  or  small.  Whether 
we  will  or  not,  we  are  our  brother's  keep 
ers,  and  the  shadow  of  his  calamity  rests, 
and  ought  to  rest,  on  our  homes.  We 
cannot  stand  apart  and  rejoice  in  our  pros 
perity;  in  the  long  run  his  calamity  must 
be  our  calamity,  and  in  some  form  we 
are  sharing,  and  must  share,  it  with  him. 
317 


What  Can  I  Do? 

A  DISTINGUISHED  surgeon  said 
not  long  ago :  "  If  there  is  an 
accident  in  the  srteet  when  I  am  passing, 
I  go  at  once  and  offer  assistance.  If  I 
can  do  anything,  I  stay,  if  I  cannot,  I 
leave.  If  I  can  do  anything,  no  amount 
of  blood  or  mutilation  has  any  effect  on 
me.  I  seem  not  to  see  it  if  I  am  at 
work;  but  if  I  can  do  nothing,  I  cannot 
bear  the  sight  of  blood;  it  makes  me  ill." 
This  is  probably  a  not  uncommon  experi 
ence  with  sensitive  people ;  it  is  certainly  a 
significant  experience.  In  great  peril 
nothing  gives  such  poise  and  steadiness  as 
having  something  to  do  which  must  be 
done  on  the  instant.  Very  few  men  go 
into  action  for  the  first  time  without  nerv 
ous  trepidation ;  but  when  the  order  comes 
that  sends  them  into  the  thick  of  the  fight, 
danger  is  forgotten.  To  be  halted  or  to 
stand  at  rest  under  a  heavy  fire  tests  the 
nerves  of  veterans;  but  the  signal  to 
3i8 


What  Can  I  Do? 

"  move  forward,"  even  when  it  involves 
every  chance  of  death,  releases  an  im 
mense  and  joyful  energy.  A  man  whose 
courage  is  known  the  world  over  said  that 
he  never  had  any  sense  of  danger  if  he 
could  do  something. 

If  living  were  a  purely  intellectual  proc 
ess,  the  position  of  the  onlooker  who  had 
nothing  to  do  would  be  ideal.  Detached 
from  the  turmoil  and  disturbance  about 
him,  he  could  study  his  age  and  his  coun 
try  with  clear  eyes  and  at  leisure.  This 
would  be  true  if  the  eye  were  an  organ 
complete  in  itself;  if  to  see  were  simply  to 
look.  But  nobody  sees  with  his  eyes 
alone;  we  see  with  our  whole  bodies,  so  to 
speak.  Every  use  of  the  eye  involves  a 
mental  process  into  which  memory,  judg 
ment,  experience,  enter.  The  whole 
mind  sees  with  the  eyes. 

Life  is  not  an  intellectual  process;  it  is 
a  vital  process ;  no  one  can  understand  it 
who  does  not  take  part  in  it.  Henry 
Ward  Beecher  once  said  that  truth  is  not 
revealed  to  us  to  satisfy  the  intellect;  it  is 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

given  to  us  only  so  far  as  it  is  necessary  to 
develop  character.  We  know  very  little 
about  the  methods  and  ultimate  designs  of 
God  in  dealing  with  us,  but  we  know 
enough  to  enable  us  to  live  upright,  use 
ful,  and  intelligent  lives.  The  vital 
truths  come  to  us  as  the  result,  not  of 
thinking,  but  of  living.  Deeper  truth  is 
taught  us  by  sorrow  than  by  the  reason; 
what  we  call  the  heart  opens  life  to  us  far 
more  deeply  than  does  the  mind.  Words 
which  assume  the  division  of  our  natures 
into  separate  organs  are  necessary  and 
convenient,  but  they  are  misleading  if  they 
give  the  impress  that  our  natures  are  di 
visible  and  act  through  organs  that  are 
independent  of  one  another.  We  are  in 
divisible,  and  whatever  we  do  involves 
mind  and  body,  will,  intellect,  and  heart 
To  understand  life  we  must  live;  and  we 
live,  not  in  thought,  emotion,  and  will 
only,  but  in  action. 

It  is  a  deep  instinct  which  makes  every 
normal  man  and  woman  ask,  "  What  can 
I  do?  "  and  that  question  is  not  left  unan- 
320 


What  Can  I  Do? 

swered.  There  is  always  something  to 
do  if  we  are  willing  to  do  it  and  do  not 
insist  on  doing  something  else.  Many 
think  there  is  nothing  for  them  to  do  be 
cause  they  are  more  eager  to  choose  their 
work  than  to  do  it;  as  if  the  main  thing 
were  the  kind  of  work  a  man  does  rather 
than  the  spirit  in  which  he  does  it  and  the 
character  he  gets  out  of  doing  it.  There 
is  a  share  in  life  for  every  one;  there  is 
work  for  every  hand.  If  you  think  there 
is  nothing  worth  while  for  you  to  do,  read 
these  words  of  Dean  Stanley: 

Do  something  worth  living  for,  worth  dying 
for.  Is  there  no  want,  no  suffering,  no  sor 
rows,  that  you  can  relieve?  Is  there  no  act  of 
tardy  justice,  no  deed  of  cheerful  kindness,  no 
long-forgotten  duty  that  you  can  perform?  Is 
there  no  reconciliation  of  some  ancient  quarrel, 
no  payment  of  some  long-outstanding  debt,  no 
courtesy,  or  love,  or  honor,  to  be  rendered  to 
those  to  whom  it  has  long  been  due ;  no  charita 
ble,  humble,  kind,  useful  deed  by  which  you  can 
promote  the  glory  of  God  or  good  will  among 
men,  or  peace  upon  earth?  If  there  be  any 
such  deed,  in  God's  name,  in  Christ's  name,  go 
and  do  it. 

321 


The  Test  of  Courage 

IN  all  great  crises  phrases  are  born. 
Real  phrases  are  not  manufactured; 
they  sum  up  and  express  great  expe 
riences.  Such  a  phrase  is  that  which  was 
used  by  General  Gallieni,  quoted  in  The 
Outlook  of  June  14:  "  Jusqu'au  bout!" 
When  a  year  ago  he  was  attacked  by  a 
grave  illness  which  a  slight  operation  and 
a  short  but  immediate  rest  would  have 
cured,  he  declined  to  drop  his  work,  say 
ing,  "  A  chief  must  set  an  example  in  war 
time,  and  go  '  jusqu'au  bout!  '  " —  that  is, 
to  the  very  end.  Unconsciously  or  in 
stinctively,  as  brave  men  do,  the  "  savior 
of  Paris  "  not  only  struck  a  great  note  but 
announced  a  great  principle  of  life  in 
those  words.  It  is  the  men  who  go  "  to 
the  very  end  "  who  are  in  every  genera 
tion  the  saviors  of  society;  they  preserve 
it  from  stagnation;  they  redeem  it  from 
corruption.  It  is  undeniable  that  there  is 
322 


The  Test  of  Courage 

a  downward  sag  in  society,  that  it  is  im 
possible  to  build  society  on  so  strong  a 
basis  that  it  will  automatically  remain 
pure  and  vigorous.  Society  must  be 
saved  in  every  generation.  It  is  impos 
sible  to  capitalize  it  so  strongly  that  it  can 
rest  safely  on  its  accumulated  moral 
strength. 

It  has  been  shown  many  times  in  the 
commercial  world  that  a  business  house 
cannot  be  built  so  strongly  that  it  will  go 
on  by  its  owri  momentum  after  the  men 
who  have  created  it  have  passed  away. 
It  will  go  on  for  a  time,  but  with  subsiding 
energy,  and  ultimately,  unless  its  strength 
is  renewed  in  the  newer  generations,  it 
will  end  in  bankruptcy.  The  attempt  to 
establish  society  so  that  it  can  rest  on  its 
oars,  so  to  speak,  is  doomed  to  failure; 
because  the  "  power  not  of  ourselves 
which  makes  for  righteousness "  seems 
to  take  very  little  interest  in  ease  and 
prosperity  and  an  enormous  interest  in 
the  establishment  of  righteousness. 
"  Morality,"  Lord  Morley  once  said,  "  is 
323 


Fruits  of  the  Spirit 

not  in  the  nature  of  things;  it  is  the  nature 
of  things  " ;  and  morality  is  a  daily  and 
hourly  reassertion,  in  definition  and  con 
duct,  of  righteousness. 

The  testing  of  courage  is  not  the  mo 
ment  when  the  charge  is  made  with  ring 
ing  bugles  and  the  impetus  and  inspiration 
of  a  great  strain  onward ;  it  is  when  the  in 
spiration  of  action  has  been  lost;  when  all 
the  conditions  are  full  of  disillusion,  and 
few  see  clearly  on  account  of  the  depres 
sion  and  monotony;  and  only  they  are 
heroically  strengthened  who  are  steadfast 
in  the  faith  in  which  they  began  the  fight 
—  loyal  to  the  very  end.  No  one  who 
reads  the  reports  that  come  from  the 
battlefields  of  Europe  can  have  the  slight 
est  idea  of  the  stolid  and  almost  despair 
ing  loyalty  with  which  millions  of  men  are 
now  living  in  the  mud,  standing  fast  with 
grim  determination,  though  with  hardly  a 
glimpse  of  victory.  These  are  the  real 
heroes  of  the  war;  and  these  are  its  black 
est  hours.  In  every  great  struggle,  na 
tional  or  individual,  the  crisis  comes  not 
324 


The  Test  of  Courage 

when  the  danger  seems  most  imminent, 
but  when  the  inspiration  has  ebbed;  and 
men  stand  fast,  not  because  they  see  that 
they  are  gaining  ground,  but  because  they 
have  pledged  themselves  to  stand  fast  to 
the  very  end.  And  no  careers  are  more 
inspiring  than  those  of  the  men  who  like 
Cavour,  have  stood  year  after  year, 
through  long-continued  and  paralyzing 
discouragements  and  defeats,  resolutely 
to  the  very  end.  Victory  waits  for  such 
men  and  rewards  them. 


325 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  AT  LOS  ANGELES 
THE  UNIVERSITY  LIBRARY 

This  book  is  DTJE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below 


16  1935 

12 


"  JAN  2  9  1947 
<W- 


Form  L-9-15m-3,'34 


fiilil 

000025227 


UNIVERSITY  of  CALIFORNIA 


UBKASY 


